


Girl Meets Girl

by sneep



Category: Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (Video Game)
Genre: Bladeswap, Driverswap, F/F, Gen, Horrific Amounts of Self-Indulgence, Lots of Torna, Rated Gen but there's swearing I guess, every character is gonna show up so I just tagged the most relevant, excessive pointifications on the nature of the driver/blade relationship, lots of things are different just go with it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-01-18 16:09:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 29,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21279521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sneep/pseuds/sneep
Summary: Something like pain, or sadness, or perhaps grief crossed her features, frozen in time just like the rest of her. That was the thing that Nia noticed the most. The thing that kept her coming back.
Relationships: Homura | Pyra/Nia
Comments: 50
Kudos: 61





	1. The Girl in the Chamber

She was absolutely still. But her face was not serene.

Something like pain, or sadness, or perhaps grief crossed her features, frozen in time just like the rest of her. That was the thing that Nia noticed the most. The thing that kept her coming back.

_ Who are you? _

She allowed herself to idly consider the question as she leaned on the railing of the catwalk. Jin and Malos had been remarkably tight-lipped about the whole thing, despite the amount of information they were willing to surrender otherwise. _ We’re Torna. We’re named after a dead Titan. For the good of all Blades, we’re going to kill God. Want to come? _

She had. And now it seemed the girl in the chamber would be coming along too. For whatever reason lay behind their leader’s cold silence.

Like magic, he appeared then, just as she was thinking of him. He had a knack for it. She couldn’t mistake the click-clank of his hard boots against the catwalk for anyone else.

“Here again, I see.”

She put a hand on her hip and frowned theatrically. “The ship is only so big. Where bloody else am I supposed to be?” Actually, she was embarrassed he had caught her in such a… _ weird _ mood, but he didn’t need to know that.

He smiled, and came up next to her on the catwalk. The smile didn’t reach his eyes. They never did.

“It’s alright. I can tell you’re curious. It’s only natural.”

She didn’t respond. Only turned back to the hulking form of the chamber. If the girl inside could hear their conversation, she didn’t or couldn’t show it. Nia turned away to leave, but her motion was broken by Jin’s voice.

“Do you want me to tell you who she is?”

She blinked. Whirled around to stare into his face curiously. It held nothing other than honesty—and an undercurrent of sadness, as always.

“I do, yeah.” Her own curiosity demanded no less.

Jin seemed to tense, as if considering something. And then he quietly sighed.

“She’s an old friend of mine, after a sense. She locked herself away after doing something… So awful, so terrible, she couldn’t live with herself.”

Nia stared at the chamber at that. The stock-still form betrayed nothing that looked particularly dangerous, or criminal. But she knew better than most that looks meant nothing.

“What did she do?”

Jin looked at the ground, his eyes unfocused. It was an expression he might have patented, for all the times Nia had seen him make it.

“There were once three more major Titans that sailed the cloud sea. No more.” Nia froze in shock.

Something tickled her intuition, at that; like she should have recognized that fact. But her memory was frustratingly empty of anything relevant.

“How long ago… Why… What…”

Jin didn’t say anything for a long moment. Nia felt as though she was going to explode. She had twice, no, three times the number of questions she had had before.

“I’m sorry. It’s… Difficult for me to talk about. When this is over, I’ll tell you all of it. I promise.”

“When this is over?”

Jin nodded.

“She took something from Malos, as well. He intends to take it back. But it will take some time. We need to be in a safe place first.”

Ah, so that was why Mikhail had been talking about course headings and bearings that led them away from the most populated Titans. Still, that left even more _ where _ s and _ why _s spinning in her head. She squinted.

“…A piece of his core crystal, Nia.” Jin’s eyes were closed now. “I swear, I’ll tell you the rest when it’s done. For now… It won’t be long until we’re there. Try to rest.”

A clear dismissal. But Nia had always been stubborn.

“If she put herself under, I don’t imagine she’ll take kindly to being woken up for this.” Never mind that this woman had… Had taken… _ that _. The thought repulsed her.

Jin shook his head. “We don’t mean to wake her, if all goes to plan. But Nia, really…” The look on his face was pleading. Painful.

“Alright! Alright. I’ll go find something else to do. …Take care, Jin.”

He nodded slowly. And she turned and left, the girl’s stricken face taking on a new meaning in her mind.

* * *

Patroka had her feet up on the table, and was reading a (probably stolen) novel. Akhos and Malos were playing checkers next to her. It was getting maybe more intense than the inventor of the game had intended.

“The next part in this drama will be written by he who has taken the art of war to heart, my ever beautiful antagonist!” He declared. “The curtain rises—” he saw Nia enter, and smiled, leaning towards her to make an aside: “—let’s see if this villain can discover my trap.”

“Shut the hell up and let me think,” Malos growled. Oh, so it was his move. Nia slid herself in next to Patroka, and leaned her chair back entirely too far.

“Enjoyin’ the entertainment, I see.”

Patroka snorted and turned the page. “If Akhos ever tries to write an _ actual _ play, kill me before he makes me read it.”

“My sister! I am _ wounded _! Surely, you jest.”

“It’s only because you’d miscast me. And not let me kill someone on stage.”

“It’s a house of drama! Of the arts! Certain _ rules _ must be respected!” He protested, his voice rising into a climactic crescendo. Malos took the opportunity to cheat while he was distracted. Nia spotted it, but said nothing. It was more fun that way.

“Where’s Dromarch? And Mikhail?”

“The Bridge,” all three responded out of time with one another. Nia grimaced. That was where Jin kept his… driver. Well, she could waste a little time here.

She settled in to see Akhos screech in torment, his position suddenly _ much _ worse than he remembered.

It was a few minutes before much else happened. Nia let herself relax—a luxury she could not have afforded just a month ago. It was a strange feeling, an odd thing to settle into. She didn’t know if she would ever get used to it.

She felt her eyes droop lower and lower. It was comfortably warm in the cabin… And the voices of her comrades were a comfort, as loud and obnoxious as they could be… yes, she might be well and truly comfortable…

The sudden sensation of her chair tipping all the way back shocked through her, and she yelped, falling hard onto the… Soft fur?

“Dromarch!” She smiled. The touch of his ether was unmistakable.

He chuckled. “It seems I got here just in time, my lady.” Carefully, he pushed the chair back up from where it had fallen onto his side. Nia was tilted back up to where she could see the faces of her companions. Patroka smirked. Akhos sniggered. And Malos guffawed.

“You should have seen your face. Absolutely priceless!” Malos’s grin was nothing short of hysterical. Nia felt herself go hot with embarrassment.

Patroka rolled her eyes. “Don’t harass her too much, Malos. We couldn’t stand to lose the only other sane person here. But… You have to admit…” The look she gave Nia was sympathetic, but still full of mirth.

“Dromarch. Are you quite well after the ungraceful performance of our compatriot? You may have taken the very injury she avoided…” Peering over the tops of his glasses, Akhos squinted owlishly down at him.

“No more than a bruise to my body—and perhaps one to my lady’s ego as well. Though both will heal with little trouble, I think.” He smiled pleasantly.

Nia snorted and crossed her arms. She was about to give them all something that wouldn’t heal so easily—but Mikhail’s voice rang out over the intercom.

“Greetings, my lovely terrorist friends! I know Dromarch _ just _ came down, but I need you all to please come grace my presence.” He paused meaningfully. When he next spoke, his voice was serious. “We’re being followed.”

* * *

The rear cameras didn’t show anything out of the ordinary; just the gentle shifting of the cloud sea. Infrared was another story.

“That is _ huge _. The hell is it, a Titan?” Malos snorted.

“A medium-sized one. That is the only thing that could fly that stealthily, without disturbing the Sea.” Akhos pushed his glasses up his nose. “Though anything else about its nature I cannot say.” Not without getting closer, was the unspoken qualifier.

“Aetheric reading’s just massive too. So I _ suppose _ you’re right.” Patroka frowned, chewing a nail as she peered at her screen. “Should we get ready for a fight?”

Mikhail shrugged. “It’s not getting any closer. Wouldn’t want to strike preemptively and have a battle where one isn’t necessary. Maybe it’s just curious.”

Jin, who had been utterly silent up to this point, spoke up suddenly.

“Prepare for battle. Man your stations and await my command.”

Everyone in the ship froze. All eyes were on him. After a long, pregnant silence, everyone scrambled to man the artillery controls—with the exception of Nia and Dromarch, who hadn’t learned to yet, and Malos, who was a walking incendiary himself and felt insulted being asked to use any lesser weapon.

The walking incendiary seemed to shudder. “Do you think—”

“I don’t think. I know. Change of plans; we’ll have to do it now. He’ll be on us long before we get there. Mikhail, do you think you can outfly a Titan?”

Mikhail smirked. “How long do you need?”

Jin looked at Malos meaningfully, and it was he that responded.

“Fifteen minutes, at most. And when I’m done, our new friend will be as good as dead.”

“Fabulous. I look forward to watching you work, cutie.” Mikhail winked at Malos before dropping into the pilot’s seat and cracking his knuckles.

It all seemed pretty serious, but Nia wasn’t actually sure what she was supposed to be doing. She mostly just tried not to look at the giant block of ice in the middle of the room. Dromarch seemed equally confused.

“Sir Jin, if I may ask—”

“With me,” Malos grunted. “I’m going to be unaware of my surroundings. You two’ll have to watch my back. And…” He looked the closest thing to _ embarrassed _ Nia had ever seen from him. “Catch me if I fall down.” That last comment came at a mutter.

Immediately, he began to march out of the room. Nia and Dromarch scrambled to follow. Jin nodded to them as they left, moving aside for Malos.

The walk back to storage wasn’t long, especially at Malos’ speed. Nia was too used to his usual slow, easy amble. It made her nervous. What the hell was he so afraid of?

They didn’t stop until they were directly in front of the chamber. Malos whirled around to eye both of his companions carefully.

“I’d have taken Jin, but he needs to oversee things up top. I’m putting my trust in you two. Not that much can touch us in here, but you need to understand how important this is.” His gaze searched both of theirs, as if trying to see into their souls. “Don’t fuck it up.”

They both nodded profusely, until Malos seemed satisfied. “Right. Let’s get to it then.” He ripped the door off the chamber with one hand and flung it across the room.

Nia and Dromarch ducked. Malos was never the type for subtlety. Or caring all that much about collateral damage. Or noticing that there was a button to open the hatch, apparently.

“A pleasure to see you again, sister,” he muttered before reaching in. Nia couldn’t see what was happening from where she was standing, but she felt the ether instantly flare and begin to coalesce. Malos went stock-still.

Nia and Dromarch exchanged looks before standing on either side of the chamber, observing the quiet room. In spite of Jin’s franticness, nothing much seemed to be happening. Yet.

Nia allowed herself to idly wonder what was going on. Clearly Jin knew something about whatever was following them that everyone else didn’t… And he was afraid of it. Jin, _ afraid _. That was…a strange thought. A terrifying thought. To be sure, she had only been here for a month, but all the same. She had never seen him give orders like that—tersely, with no qualification or explanation. As for Malos… he was acting just as strangely. Trust? From him?

_ Bloody hell, _ Nia thought. _ He must really be desperate. _

As for what he was doing… well, that was clear enough. She could put two and two together. He was reclaiming part of his core crystal. Somehow. Not that she had ever seen it. He didn’t flaunt it. She, of all people, could understand that.

Fate picked that moment to allow two things to happen:

First, the ship lurched uncomfortably, shaking everything in the room. Nia nearly lost her balance.

Second, the girl in the chamber began to scream.

It was a violent scream, hoarse and full of suffering. Raw. Painful. And it didn’t stop. Even when Nia covered her ears, it seemed to bleed through her fingers and pierce her brain deep into the bottom of her skull. Dromarch had his ears flat to head, and growled softly. But he didn’t move.

Nia couldn’t stand it. She couldn’t. She turned around and her eyes went wide with shock.

The girl was writhing, jerking in apparent agony, her eyes wide and unseeing. Her eyes were green, Nia noticed idly, but she was too fixated on Malos… holding her down. One hand over her… Core crystal. She had a core crystal. Well—of course she did. Of course she was a blade. Nobody on this ship gave a damn about anyone that wasn’t.

In a stupor, Nia watched as her struggles grew more violent. The girl gasped for breath, her eyes rolling into the back of her head. Malos’ grip tightened.

_ Important, _ the words rang through Nia’s head, _ This is important. _ But she was a blade. She was hurting. Suffering. Clearly.

Nia couldn’t have said what she was thinking in that moment, because she wasn’t. It didn’t take any thinking at all for her to rush Malos down and knock him over. She heard his head hit the floor with a _ crack. _

Standing over him in a haze, Nia panted heavily. Oh God. What did she just—

“What the fuck did you _ do _?” Malos was getting up. He wasn’t dead. Of course he wasn’t dead, he was a blade.

“I—she—you were—she was—”

“I _ almost had it _ . I was _ so close _ .” His hand clutched at his chest, Nia noticed then. His face was screwed up in pain. “Why the _ hell _—”

“You—you were hurting her…” It sounded like a weak excuse. Her voice trembled. Her knees shook. Malos’ face contorted into a mask of rage.

“_ I trusted you. We all trusted you. _” He swayed on his feet, approaching her slowly. Dromarch—where was Dromarch? Frozen behind Malos, his eyes wide in shock.

“She just—it seemed—”

“I DON’T CARE WHAT IT SEEMED! I NEED TO BE WHOLE AGAIN! YOU THINK I’M NOT IN PAIN?”

He ripped the chestpiece off his armor, exposing his crystal. Nia wanted to vomit. Ragged, uneven, the hole torn in it left spidering cracks all throughout. How was he alive? How had he—

“Now I’m going to go back,” he growled. “Let me finish what I started and I might consider letting you live.”

Nia wasn’t sure what froze her feet to the floor in that moment, but she couldn’t move. Her eyes met Malos’ with a conviction she definitely didn’t feel inside.

Malos roared with anger and rushed her. But the ship _ lurched _ again, even further, practically onto its side. The three— _ four _— blades tumbled over and were thrown across the room.

Nia pulled herself up, her gut telling her to _ run _ . Small tremors were now running through the ship, and she thought she heard the _ thrum _ of the cannons spinning up.

The girl was in front of her, her body now prone on the floor. Nia wasn’t a religious person, but she got the sense _ someone _ was asking her to _ do something _. Whether it was Providence or The Architect (never mind that she had resolved to help kill him) or honestly just herself.

Either way. She hadn’t thought much about anything she was doing this whole time, and wasn’t about to start. She just scooped the girl into her arms and threw her ungracefully over her shoulder. And ran.

So. Now what?

The twisting passages of the ship wound before her eyes the burden slowed her down, but she was still making good time. Being able to strengthen one’s own muscles helped.

There were limits to that power, though. There always were.

At the very least it gave her enough time to think of a (very stupid) plan. She would threaten to throw herself and the girl off the ship unless Malos agreed not to… do whatever he had been doing. Surely he could heal himself without causing so much harm to another blade? Or maybe they could wake her up and see if she would agree to it anyway? Or something like that? Really, she was too stressed out to think all that rationally.

It was weird, though. She and the rest of Torna had killed plenty of humans in their travels. But they’d never tried to harm a Blade. There wasn’t reason to! They just collected up the leftover crystals and stored them in the ship’s hold. She had felt nothing standing over the dead Praetorium templars that had chased her for months on end. Nothing as she cut down the drivers Bana had assigned them as guards (more like spies).

But Malos had been… His core crystal… She shuddered thinking of what a wreck it was.

_ I don’t know! I don’t know! I’m just gonna stop thinking about it. _

So she just ran for the nearest hatch out to the deck. It took some finagling to get it open while holding someone her size, but she managed.

Even so, she heard running footsteps from behind her just as she burst out into the open air.

“You little _ shit! _” She heard Malos yell. But it was almost completely drowned out by the sudden wall of sound that slammed into her ears.

Cannonfire from every direction, the aetheric generators running full blast, the whip and snap of blistering wind, the roar of a titan—

She nearly froze in shock, watching the great shadow pass over the ship. By the Architect, it was _ big _. No wonder Jin had been afraid of this thing. Pulses of ether followed it through the air—it spun gracefully and suffered not a scratch. She could only make out a pair of wings, a tail, and a great long neck…

Malos screamed in rage behind her. Oh, right. That.

She spun and backed herself up to the railing. It would be easy enough to heave herself over, as top-heavy as she was carrying the girl. She almost did on accident, at first, a terrifying moment of vertigo where she felt her balance give out. The ship lurching as the Titan rammed it again didn’t help either.

Just barely managing to regain her balance, she now faced Malos. He’d summoned his weapon: a gracefully curved miaodao that widened toward the tip. It pulsed and flickered with ether as he approached. She’d seen it cleave away limbs enough times to fear it, now.

“Stop it, or I’ll jump!” She shouted, with more bravery than she felt. Malos only smirked.

“You _ really _ think you could do it, huh? Go ahead, then.”

He cocked his hips, rested his sword on his shoulder, and just watched.

_ Eh? _

Nia had prepared herself mentally to be physically attacked, verbally threatened and/or berated, and possibly thrown off the edge entirely on accident, but this was something else entirely. Really, she probably should have at least suspected he would react like this. Kicking herself mentally, she widened her stance, in preparation to… Er…

No, really, _ could _ she do this?

Time yawned and took a backseat, slowing to a crawl. Out of the corner of her eye, Nia could see the cloud sea boiling beneath her, waves of vapor sent frothing by the battle writhing around the ship. She pushed upwards with her legs a little and felt her stomach drop. No, this was a terrible idea…

But Malos was smirking with all the arrogance in the world and Nia fucking _ hated _ it.

Without a second more of thought, she tipped herself backwards.

“My lady! What in the Architect’s name are you _ doing! _”

Dromarch, with Akhos hot on his heels, was the last thing she saw as she pitched over the side.


	2. Rules of Nature

Great, so, falling. Falling was terrible, and she hated the sensation, as it turned out.

Fortunately time was falling completely asleep at this point and she began to take the opportunity to contemplate her life choices. It really wasn’t the best time, but then, when was it ever?

With the height the  _ Monoceros _ had been maintaining over the cloud sea, she would have quite a ways to fall.

It was actually a common myth that jumping into water would guarantee safety. Plenty of aspiring Gormotti cliff divers had died to tell people that, but it never seemed to settle in. Water was as hard as a rock if you hit it fast enough, a very easy thing to achieve from great enough heights, and all the usual effects of throwing yourself off a high place would apply. At the speed Nia was about to hit the surface at, every bone in her body would shatter.

She remembered the time she had treated her sister for a broken leg. It had been extremely painful for her, in large part because Nia had had to set the bone back into place, and in small part because of the bone in question. Some bones (i.e. the radius) were designed to break to prevent worse damage to more important parts of the body. The femur, on the other hand, was not. The femur was very stout bone and frankly you could only break it by doing something extremely stupid. Nia had held back on griping at the poor girl about whatever had happened. She didn’t remember anymore anyway.

Ah, well, whatever it was, this was much worse. She didn’t even have a good reason to save this woman. This entire time, she had just been acting on her gut, and her anger-clouded physician brain that hated seeing people get hurt. Which was even funnier because she was about to die.

That was just silly, especially from someone with the power to bring back people from the dead— hmm…

Well. No use not trying. At this rate, stupidity was becoming her very, very close friend.

* * *

They had all written her off for dead, and were arguing about ways to recover the Aegis’ core crystal, when everyone present simultaneously realized Dromarch hadn’t dissipated yet.

For a rare moment, quiet reigned aboard the  _ Monoceros _ .

“So. It would seem we’ve gone substantially off-script,” a bemused Akhos interjected. No one bothered to cuff him on the head for making a theater joke at a bad time.

That seemed to break everyone out of their stupor. Especially Dromarch, who had been mourning himself and his driver for half an hour.

“I should have realized my lady would not meet her end so easily. But that was a rather long fall…” He started down at himself dubiously, as if expecting his existence to end at any minute.

“So? She’s probably floating on the cloud sea, barely alive.” Patroka rolled her eyes. “We have just a little time to go find her. And then kill her for real, probably.”

Dromarch looked very displeased.

“We need to find the Aegis. That’s our first priority.” Jin’s levelheaded voice cut through the room.

Mikhail was scandalized. “But we protect our own! We can’t just let a beautiful girl die out there, all alone…”

“She betrayed us.”

Malos’ growl shut everyone up. All eyes were on him, now.

“What, what else do you want me to say? We took her in. And she didn’t hold up her part of the bargain. If we  _ do _ let her live, it won’t be without consequences.”

Heavy silence. He was right, of course. But they had all liked Nia. Pragmatic, cantankerous Nia. That was probably why Malos was so mad.

Dromarch cleared his throat.

“We wouldn’t kill her or let her die,” Jin cut in. “At least for your sake. Assuming we have your continued… partnership.”

Nia’s blade bowed his head.

“Of course.”

* * *

The swish of grass and the whisper of the wind were the only sounds.

Still and serene, with an impossibly blue sky, and hills that stretched on forever and ever. A feeling of peace.  _ Belonging. _ The warmth of home.

Safety. Contentment.

Nia became aware of herself slowly. The tears that pricked her cheeks dripped carefully down to her neck. Her sleeves scratched against her hands like they always did, and the breeze tickled the fine hair that covered her ears.

She swallowed, and took in everything around her.

“So it didn’t work, then.”

She felt surprised she had said the words out loud. But… She hadn’t. Her mouth hadn’t moved at all. She touched her lips with her fingers.

“What…?” Firmly closed. But the word still rang through the air.

This was Death, somehow.

“This is more comfortable than I imagined the afterlife would be,” she said and thought to herself, “who knew.” She should probably be panicking about the situation more, but couldn’t seem to. Unnatural calm had her in its grip.

She didn’t mind being here. It was… Nice. Relaxing. She wanted to just lie down and relax, forever.

The toll of a bell, long in the distance. There was something ominous about that bell. Something uncomfortable.

“No, you aren’t dead. Sorry…”

Nia jerked at the sound of a voice that definitely wasn’t her own. Too soft, too gentle, with a strange accent. And there was a feeling of  _ regret _ that came with it—one that wasn’t her own. As if the emotion had been carried to her along with the breeze.

She turned—and it was her. The woman she had just died for.  _ With _ , probably.

“It’s you!”

The girl was smiling, but her bright green eyes didn’t reflect it. A soft, sad, smile, which was quickly replaced by a look of confusion.

“I suppose it is…” She looked at herself in an embarrassed way. “Here I… Am?”

Her mouth did not move either, but Nia could hear her words loud and clear, just as if she had spoken them.

“Oh! Do you mean—are you—” the girl paused, looking contemplative. “I heard a voice, sometimes. Asking ‘who are you?’. Was that you?”

Nia immediately flushed with embarrassment. Had she known—how?

“Er, I suppose, it might have been, but I mean, I never… I never said that out loud…” She felt terribly stupid. “That’s creepy!”

The girl jumped at the accusation, immediately casting her eyes downward.

“Sorry. I didn’t hear you intentionally. I’m—”

“Hang on, did you say I’m not dead?” That detail had only just registered in Nia’s head. Things were entirely too confusing just now.

“Yes, and I was getting to that—um—I’m Pyra, by the way. Pleased to meet you?”

Clearly she had had some kind of speech in mind at some point, but Nia had disrupted it.  _ Damn it, Nia, you’re an idiot. _

“No you’re not!”

Nia stared.

“You  _ heard _ that?”

“Well, this place sort of works like—you were just thinking so  _ loud _ . I couldn’t help it.” The girl shrugged helplessly.

“So that’s… How you heard me asking you…”

“Probably? I’m afraid I don’t know.”

The two stood there for a long moment, cautiously regarding each other. The breeze only carried the distant toll of the bell.

“…Nia”

“What?”

“I’m Nia.” She stuck out her hand awkwardly. Pyra took it and shook gently. Nia realized a second later that Pyra had just heard her name and she  _ really _ didn’t need to introduce herself if half her thoughts were getting broadcast to everyone out here—

“It’s just us,” Pyra commented sheepishly.

Right. Anyway.

“Where are we, exactly?”

“It’s a bit… Complicated to explain…”

“Try me.”

Pyra paused, seeming to gather her thoughts.

“After—what happened… I connected our… hearts? Well, I guess our—the data within—” she waved her hands around in a frustrated way. “Anyway, it was to see if you wanted to be kept alive. I, um, wanted your permission?”

It took Nia a second to process all that. She got the feeling Pyra had skipped over quite a bit. It did not take that long for her to zero in on the weirdest part.

“Kept… Alive?”

Pyra nodded. “I understand that we were falling into the Cloud Sea from a great height?”

Nia scratched her head. “Yeah, that’s it.” Funny, she couldn’t remember much afterward. It was all fuzzy.

“Well, you did… Something with your ether. Supercharged yourself? That’s what it felt like. Anyway, it woke me up, because I felt your core crystal, err… Well, whatever you did, combined with the shock of hitting the Sea, put so much stress on your crystal that it shattered.”

Pyra looked really sheepish now. “And I thought to myself, ‘well, that’s really a shame’ so I put it back together—um, you must understand, all of this happened in under half a second so I didn’t have much time to—”

Nia’s mouth was hanging open at this point. That explanation had jogged her memory of the scant seconds she had spent falling—

“So the thing I did to save myself killed me.  _ That’s _ what killed me.” It was all so surreal that there was no point asking any more questions. She threw back her head and laughed. Pyra looked very concerned.

“Oh, this is just too bloody rich! As if my life wasn’t enough of a disaster already!” Nia shook her head. “Never could catch a break. I guess I wasn’t about to start now.”

Scuffing her foot against the ground, Pyra spoke up again.

“Well, like I said, you aren’t dead, exactly… But there are some caveats to you being alive.”

“Caveats.”

Pyra nodded.

“Like… For example…?”

“You aren’t quite the same as you were before. I had to sort of… Patch you together with what I had… It’s not perfect. And I’d like you to help me with something. In return.”

At that, Nia cocked an eyebrow. “And that would be?”

“I need you to help me get to Elysium.”

Silence hung in the air like a hundred-ton weight.

“Elysium.”

“Yes.”

“Like from… Children’s stories.”

“I… Suppose so.”

Nia covered her face with her hands. This was becoming so patently ridiculous she no longer knew how she was supposed to react.

“Elysium… isn't real, right?”

“It’s real! I know it is. How would I remember it so clearly otherwise?” Pyra looked about the landscape, at the beautiful rolling hills and the forest in the distance. A single cloud moseyed through the sky at a leisurely pace, oblivious to the two women beneath. The tolling bell seemed to be quieter, now. This made Pyra frown. “Look, we don’t have a lot of time. Will you do this for me?”

Nia thought for a moment, and then shrugged. It wasn’t like she had much else to do, considering the other option was to be dead. What else could possibly go wrong?

“Alright. I s’pose it’s only fair, with you saving my life.” She spat on her hand and stuck it out.

Pyra blinked, and stared. “What… oh. I see.” Awkwardly, she licked her hand and took Nia’s.

Within half a second, blinding light filled Nia’s entire awareness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thieves' honor.


	3. Our Compromise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things slow down for a little while.
> 
> ...A little while.

Gasping for air. Cold wind biting against her skin. The sky, an endless blue, stretching for eons around her.

Nia’s whole body felt like it was on fire; like it was glowing with light and heat that originated from deep in her chest. There was something like a  _ settling _ , an adjustment, somewhere inside her she couldn’t name. The pieces slotted into place just slightly different from where they had been before, something strange within the cracks, binding her back together once and for all.

Agonizingly slowly, the feeling faded.

“Are you feeling alright?” Pyra’s face appeared in her field of vision, blotting out part of that limitless sky. Only then did Nia realize she was flat on her back.

“Depends on your definition of ‘alright’, mate,” she groaned, pushing herself up slowly. They seemed to be on a patch of grass which was situated… On a small Titan. Which was currently flying over the Sea at an incredible speed.

Hm.

Speaking of, there was something familiar about…

“You’re the one that attacked the ship!” She accused, instinctually reaching for the rings at her hip. Which, of course, weren’t there.

“You can relax, Nia, he’s—”

“Are you sure saving this girl was such a good idea?” A booming voice rang out, vibrating the very ground underneath them. The great head swung to one side, affixing on Nia with one beady eye. “I’m not sure I approve of someone so… impolite.”

“Azurda!” Pyra scolded, “She’s still out of sorts from the fall! As if you aren’t being equally rude!”

“At my age, I’m allowed to be rude.” Azurda’s(?) voice was noticeably smug. And as for  _ age _ —he did remind Nia of an old man, if old men could shout with the force of a thunderstorm. She frowned.

“Don’t get your knickers in a twist, Grandpa, I think I’m allowed to be suspicious of people that resort to violence for no reason,” she grumbled.

“No reason! No  _ reason _ !” He shook his head before swinging it back around to the front. “You see, Pyra? Impolite!”

Pyra just sighed.

Quietly, Azurda added: “And even if I was small enough to, I wouldn’t wear  _ knickers _ .”

Nia decided to ignore that one.

The cloud sea stretched out beneath them like a soft carpet of snow, perfect and undisturbed. Not a single other Titan or ship was in sight. Only the distant World Tree broke up the scenery, rising up in front of them with all its usual dignity. That was their bearing, it seemed. Nia was unsettled by the solitude; when she was with Torna, it seemed like they were always being chased. Now it was eerily quiet.

“How’d we get away from the ship?”

Nia heard the Titan snort. “I don’t imagine that pilot was fool enough to think they could catch up to a titan like me.” His wings gave a powerful flap then, as if to punctuate his point. “Doubtless, it’s far behind us. By the by, I am Azurda, as you’ve heard. You would be…?”

“Nia.”

“Well, Nia, if Pyra has a measure of confidence in you, then I am forced to as well, considering the circumstances. But I must tell you that I was merely attacking the thieves that kidnapped her…”

Nia crossed her arms.

“And your goal was what, to send all of us to the bottom of the cloud sea? Including—”

“Cut it out!” Pyra shouted suddenly. “At least  _ try _ to get along until we get to the world tree!”

Nia and Azurda both snorted in protest, but stopped talking anyway. Nia cleared her throat uncomfortably after a moment.

“… Is that where we’re headed, then? Straight to the Tree? What do you need me for, exactly?”

Pyra blinked, studying Nia’s face.

“It… Seems I was under the Sea for about 500 years, according to Azurda.”

“513, by my count,” he cut in.

“Right. I’m sure much has changed, in that time. If something goes wrong and our course is diverted, I’ll need some help to get around without too much suspicion. And the Tree itself is… Not the safest place. Having a companion is a good idea. Can you fight?”

“‘Course,” Nia snorted. “Woulda died much earlier otherwise.” Being constantly chased by Indoline Templars was like that. “And I’ve got plenty of experience sneaking around. I s’pose you lucked out, getting saddled with me. I have to ask, though, how you expect to climb up the Tree? Neither of us have gear for that, unless you’re about to surprise me.”

Pyra shook her head. “There are places to… enter it, and go up from the inside. We’ll have to do some looking, but they’re there.” She twisted her fingers together nervously.

“It’s a wonder you don’t have Grandpa here fly us up to the top. Maybe he’s getting frail.”

Azurda laughed. “I assure you, my abilities have only refined with age. But the top of the World Tree is higher than even I can ascend. High enough that the air becomes extremely thin, apparently.”

“Hm.” Nia was now wishing she’d asked Mikhail more questions about the mechanics of flying around the Cloud Sea. She got the sense there was something both of them weren’t mentioning, but couldn’t pin down anything specifically suspicious. Her brow knit together with concentration as she tried to put it together.

“Something wrong?” Pyra’s voice, laced with concern, lanced into her train of thought. Nia sighed.

“No, nothing. It’s fine. Let’s get to the Tree.”

* * *

They were gone. Just gone.

Didn’t show up on scans—not Radar, Lidar, Aetheric, or anything else Akhos and Mikhail thought to try. And they couldn’t have sunk far into the Sea without drowning, as Dromarch’s continued existence disproved. So that left…

“Shit,” Jin swore. “Azurda.”

Everyone turned to look at him with questioning looks on their faces. Except Malos, of course, who was utterly  _ furious _ .

“That damn lizard,” he muttered, “it was a mistake to think he would’ve given up after 500 years.”

For a second, silence reigned among the group as everyone waited to see if they would have to demand an explanation.

Patroka was the first to catch on, as usual.

“The Titan that attacked us,” she stated humorlessly. “You were  _ expecting _ it?”

“More like  _ sus _ pecting,” Malos replied. “Legends about the Beast of the Deep have all but faded away, after all.” Jin nodded silently in confirmation.

“The Beast of the Deep! A kid’s story?” Patroka sneered. “And I guess the bogeyman will come to take us away for being bad, right?”

“You of all people should know that even the most absurd stories might have a basis in fact,” Malos pointed out. “All of us should. Or have you forgotten who you’re talking to? What you are?”

At that, she just crossed her arms and frowned even deeper.

“We should have told all of you. For that, I apologise,” Jin began, “but Azurda might not have appeared at all. I wasn’t certain that he would even be alive after this long. A lot can happen in five hundred years.”

“Who is this ‘Azurda’, then? What role does he have to play in all this?” Dromarch was giving Jin a piercing look. “Furthermore, neither Nia nor I were given much detail about what our goal was here. It makes establishing trust all the more difficult, and might have aided in her… departure.”

Dead silence. All eyes turned to Dromarch. Mikhail looked between he and Jin nervously, chewing on a nail.

Jin sighed, long and slow.

“You’re right. An explanation is long overdue.”

* * *

The upper deck of the ship was freezing cold, chilled by the fog that rose off the Cloud Sea this time of year. Dromarch was unbothered by this; in fact, he found the cold and wet cleared his head when he needed time to think. Came with the territory of being attuned to water and covered in thick, warm fur.

The ship rose and fell gently, borne by the Sea and its ever-changing tides. Mikhail was no doubt asleep on the bridge, having set the craft to float in such an easy manner. He was a rambunctious sort, but not unpleasant company, Dromarch thought. It was easy to get along with someone so willing to discuss every detail of his ship at a moment’s notice. It made for fine conversation. And it was  _ his _ , more than any other member of the crew’s—as long as he had the  _ Monoceros _ , it seemed, he would be happy.

Would that things could be so simple for Dromarch himself. He sighed.

“Up here so late?” Jin’s voice. He sounded almost… Sheepish. Dromarch turned and nodded a greeting.

“I found I could not sleep. I thought perhaps what I needed was time to myself.”

“Then… Don’t let me bother you.” Jin turned to go.

“There is no need,” Dromarch interjected amicably. “I’ve thought every thought I could think at this point.” Turning, he fixed his eyes back upon the invisible horizon.

Dromarch didn’t expect Jin to stay, but to his surprise, the other man came to stand beside him at the railing. He was a strange one, Dromarch thought. It was always difficult to tell what he was thinking. His quiet demeanor was strangely out of place among the rest of the bunch.

They stood in silence for a long while. Dromarch didn’t bother to push Jin into conversation. It wouldn’t work, anyhow.

“So,” Jin finally said. “Can you feel her?”

Dromarch paused, closing his eyes. Almost by instinct, he reached out, feeling the faint connection that joined he and Nia.

“Yes.” The answer almost surprised him. “But… It is growing lesser. Weaker. It is troubling.”

Jin hummed softly to himself, his eyes somewhere far away.

“A separation of great distance can do that. The farther away Azurda flies her, the more tenuous it will be.”

Dromarch shifted uncomfortably, considering this.

“Since my awakening, we have never been separated to such an extent. We have always… Supported one another from close by.”

“It’s pretty apparent you two are close, even for blade and driver. It makes what she did all the more mystifying.”

The mist swirled and congealed over the deck, partially obscuring the floor. Had the temperature dropped? Dromarch dropped to his haunches and fluffed his fur out for warmth.

Inspecting one of his paws, he sighed. “Close enough for me to understand what happened, to an extent. We are both healers by nature and disposition, as much as our suffering has hardened us. Nia could not rightly ignore another blade in such pain.” He paused, choosing his next few words delicately. “Perhaps if you had revealed the truth sooner…”

Jin was utterly silent. The temperature dropped again. Ice congealed on his lips when he began to speak.

“Malos told me what happened. …Some of it was his fault, though he’d never admit it himself.”

Dromarch nodded, but didn’t respond. Jin cleared his throat.

“I’m sorry,” he said simply.

The mist seemed to clear all at once, swirling away in its ineffable pattern. Around the two blades was a sphere of cold, dry air.

“Nia looks up to you, you know,” Dromarch said softly. “She would no doubt like to hear that directly from you.”

Jin bowed his head. “If I get the chance.”

_ And if she lets you, _ Dromarch thought, but didn’t put voice to.

* * *

The World Tree loomed above them, impossibly vast. Nia’s brain struggled to process its sheer girth, let alone its height. And they were supposed to climb up this thing? How long was that going to take? Days? Months?  _ Years? _

Come to think of it, how long would it be before she could see Dromarch again?

She pushed that uncomfortable thought out of her mind. It was best not to think about worrying things that you couldn’t change.

“There,” Pyra said suddenly, and pointed. Nia could make out a dark smudge against the trunk where the sunlight glinted unnaturally.

“That’s our entry point?” Nia squinted. “Well, at least it’s right there. Lucky break.”

“Lucky indeed,” Azurda commented, “These old bones find themselves needing a rest after flying for so long.” Nia rolled her eyes at that. One minute the Titan’s age was a source of wisdom that in no way hampered him, no sir-ee, and the next he was suffering horribly from chronic arthritis that pained him beyond mortal understanding. Oh, his massive joints! That meant four times the pain! Nia had no idea Titans could be so full of shit.

Even so, he glided gently down to the surface of the cloud sea before coming to rest floating in it. After a moment she felt his legs begin to churn gently underneath, propelling the three of them forward at a steady pace.

Pyra yawned and stretched. “I’m feeling in need of a rest as well. Strange how just sitting like this can make you tired.”

Nia peered at her out of one eye. “I dunno, all this sitting around is just making me nervous. Downtime always means something bloody crazy is around the corner.”  _ That was my mistake on the Maelstrom. With Torna. _

“Really?” Pyra thought for a moment—and began to look uncomfortable.

“See? I’m right, aren’t I?”

“‘Bloody crazy’…Yes, that describes it well.” She smiled nervously. And didn’t elaborate. Funny, that. It had been at least half a day and the girl at barely said a word about herself.

“So what’s your story, anyway?” Nia leaned forward on her elbows. “This whole situation has been bloody crazy all on its own. If I think about it, we don’t even need to wait. What did Malos even try to  _ do _ to you?”

Pyra’s apparent discomfort only increased at the question. Nia felt a bit bad about it. But she ignored that.

“What do you… Mean?”

“You were screaming bloody murder,” Nia said bluntly. Best not to mince. “He was doing something to your core crystal… eugh. It’s disgusting to think about. Anyway, I know what extreme pain looks like. Were you not… Conscious, then?”

A long pause from her, then. Pyra shuddered and shifted where she was sitting.

“No, I was… I knew what was happening. Faintly. I felt him reach inside me, and look for my. My… self. It’s an Aegis thing, it’s difficult to explain—”

“Aegis?”

Pyra looked terrified. “Er…”

“Nia,” Azurda piped up, “I understand your desire to  _ know _ , but there are  _ boundaries. _ ” He stopped utterly, so that they now floated listlessly on the Sea. “Aside from this being terribly  _ impolite _ —”

“I can defend myself, Azurda.”

Pyra’s voice was like simmering coals.

The Titan quieted, a low, dangerous rumble emitting from below the two blades. But a moment later, he closed his eyes. “I must rest. Wake me if there is trouble.”

The tension didn’t disappear from the air, though. If anything, it only increased. Nia squirmed, trying to think of something to break the silence. Anything.

“Grandpa over there is very protective of you.” Oh my God. What kind of dumbass thing to say was that? Nia put her face in her hands.

Extremely fortunately, Pyra seemed equally interested in changing the subject. She relaxed visibly and sighed.

“It’s habit. He spent centuries scaring everyone off from where I was sealed. According to him, at least.” She kept her voice low. “Though he’s always been a bit on the insufferable side.” Her mouth quirked into a small smile.

“Interesting, since we waltzed right in,” Nia replied, bemused. “What, did he fall asleep?”

Pyra shrugged. “Probably.”

If eyes could literally bulge out of one’s skull, Nia’s would have popped out and rolled across the ground.

“You can’t be serious.”

“Titans have vastly stretched out lifecycles, don’t you know? They can sleep for decades.”

Pyra then leaned in and lowered her voice to a whisper. “He’s really embarrassed about it. Don’t tease him too much.”

The sleepyhead choose that moment to let out a loud snore, making both blades jump in shock as the ground shook beneath them. They shared a long look.

And burst into laughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jin tries so hard. 
> 
> A couple things:  
If you've read this far, you're probably wondering "where's Rex?". Don't worry. We'll get to him.  
Secondly, my fics tend to be a bit more carefully edited, but this is something I'm just kind of throwing onto paper (screen?) to have a good time. The thought of reading this over and over with the scope it has is a bit daunting.   
With that in mind, if you'd like to beta, feel free to reach out to me. I think I could use a sanity checker.


	4. Keeper of the Sea

Really, the fact that  _ anyone _ else might be out here should have been the first sign something was going pear-shaped. Going to the World Tree just wasn’t a thing people  _ did _ . Everybody knew it was ridiculously dangerous, and even blasphemous, if you were a religious type. Which Nia wasn’t. But that was beside the point.

There it was, a strange bobbing craft with an unreasonable number of propellers sticking out all over it. It didn’t seem to be much more than a flying metal frame with a small ether tank attached to it somehow. How on Alrest was it even staying up?

Poorly, if the sudden drop in altitude and the screams rising from the thing were any indication. As they drew closer, Nia could hear two distinct voices arguing—one high-pitched and manic, the other low and boisterous. She twitched her ears in the direction of the sounds, trying to make out what they were saying.

_ “… That damn inventor had no idea what he was talking about!” _

_ “Nonsense. It’s flying just fine, see?” _

The craft dropped again. Nia snickered.

“What is it?” Pyra asked, suspiciously eyeing the thing. Right. She couldn’t hear them at this distance, not having the right ears and all.

Nia just shrugged. “Looks like two people in there. We should get clear before they notice—”

_ “Look, Zeke! A Titan! We’re saved!” _

Oh, no.

“They seem to be in a spot of trouble. That craft of theirs doesn’t look very airworthy…” Azurda commented.

Oh no, oh no, oh no.

Nia sighed her deepest sigh as Azurda banked to fly towards them. “I don’t think trying to help suspicious strangers is a good idea, Grandpa.”

“Pessimistic of you. Are you going to leave every person in need out to dry, then?”

“That’s not what I—”

“We’ll talk to them first. If there’s trouble, we can just fly away,” Pyra said firmly. And so that was that.

The scene became more clear as the trio drew closer; a scruffy-looking gray-haired man in an eyepatch was wrestling enthusiastically with whatever passed for controls on the thing he was flying, while a woman whose entire face was taken up by a massive pair of glasses was shouting at him.

“Left, Prince,  _ left! _ Hey! Hey over there! Help!” She waved her arms frantically as the two groups pulled up alongside each other. Nia could now see a long cable that dangled from the bottom of the craft into the cloud sea. Salvagers, maybe? But they weren’t like any salvagers she had ever seen. They tended to be… better prepared. And better at teamwork.

The man paused in his battle with the controls to look over at Azurda, and then Pyra and Nia. Immediately, his face broke into a worryingly huge smile.

“Tally-ho, comrades! Lovely weather out here, isn’t it?” He gave a two-fingered salute.

“Zeke! Just ask them if they’ll help us!”

“Nonsense! If we quit now, this whole trip will be a bust!” The strange ship dropped another few feet, and… Zeke, Nia presumed, went back to flailing his limbs about on the various control sticks, pedals, and dials. Azurda circled the craft as it began to putter along in another direction.

“What brings you fine people out here today, then?” He asked amiably. Nia got the sense he was trying not to laugh. She looked over at Pyra, who… was trying  _ really _ hard not to laugh, and failing utterly, her face red with exertion. As soon as their eyes met, Pyra collapsed into another fit of poorly-contained sniggering.

The two people on the weird ship looked at each other, and nodded.

“Fishing!” Both were miming reeling something in with their hands. Architect above, who the hell were these jokers?

“Fishing,” Nia deadpanned.

“That’s right!” Said the woman, hands on her hips. From this angle, Nia could see the telltale glint of a core crystal on her chest. So she was a blade… that made things substantially more interesting. And worrying.

“Have you… have you caught anything yet?” Pyra’s barely-controlled voice cut through the air without her having to yell, just like it always did. She let out a guffaw—and turned it into a very convincing sneeze.

The two fisherpeople shared a glance before smiling. “Nope!”

“Most frustrating, actually. I have it on very good faith that this is where the Beast makes his den,” Zeke said confidently.

“Good faith! That informant took half our money and disappeared! When we get back, I’m going to show him what’s what!”

“Come now, Pandy, have some charity. Allies of justice don’t go beating up random people in alleys.”

“Like hell I won’t!” To punctuate her point, Pandy (?) materialized some kind of very sparkly staff out of the ether. “Anyone who messes with my Prince gets it!”

Nia felt a rush of static explode in the air. All her hair instantly stood on end. Ether coalesced around Pandy, beginning to build into something much larger…

“At the very least, we won’t kill him,” Zeke replied.

“Alright. We won’t kill him.” Both fisherpeople nodded, seeming to reach some kind of agreement. The charge in the air disappeared as quickly as it had come. Nia had no idea what had just happened.

“So, anyway, have you good people seen the legendary Beast of the Deep anywhere around here?”

Azurda instantly jerked, as if shocked. Curious.

“I’m not familiar with that one,” Pyra replied smoothly, “Is it some kind of fish?”

Zeke and Pandy sniggered.

“Some kind of fish, she says.”

“Not  _ strictly _ wrong, of course, depending on your definition of fish.” Zeke commented. “But no, the Beast is something else entirely. Some describe it as a winged serpent that drags men into the Cloud Sea, devouring them whole. Some say it is a Titan, driven mad by the lack of people living on its back. And some say it’s a denizen of Morytha, the land beneath the Sea, where the souls of the damned do wander. Either way, it has lived in the depths of the Sea since time immemorial, attacking indiscriminately anyone foolish enough to look upon its dread visage. Supposedly, anyway. No one in modern times has ever actually seen it.” Zeke put his hand to his chest. “But I  _ know _ it’s real. It is my holy mission to defeat it!”

He punched a button, and a winch began to reel in the cable that hung down from the ship. Ponderously, a massive hook with the leg of an Ellook stuck on it rose from underneath the clouds.

“Behold! My ingenious plan! I call it the “Beastinator 5000”!” He flashed a proud smile.

Pyra, Nia, and Azurda simply sat there, stunned. What kind of simpleton was this man, exactly?!

“And you think this will attract this ‘beast’?” Pyra asked diplomatically, recovering thankfully much faster than the other two.

“What bloodthirsty monster wouldn’t go for a delicious leg of ellook? It makes me hungry just looking at it…”

The leg in question was asked charred black in a number of places, Nia noticed. Any blood remaining in it had long since burned away or drained out—and the telltale signs of rot were beginning to show. Maybe if this ‘bloodthirsty’ monster was a scavenger it would have a chance of working. But by her judgement that was unlikely, and this man was an idiot.

Zeke punched the button again, and the leg dropped into the sea.

“So what brings all of you out here?” Pandy leaned over in her seat (if it could be called that). “You’re awfully close to the Void for a normal trip.”

Pyra and Nia exchanged looks. “The void?”

“You know, the Void? Punishes the unworthy for getting too close to the Tree and all that?” She pointed.

Nia squinted, following her arm to the base of the World Tree. It was hard to make out, but—Somewhere about halfway between where they were and the Tree itself, the Cloud Sea just… stopped.

The Tree rose up, visible far below where it should have been. Mist drifted out from whatever lay inside the hole. Around where the…edge… was, birds rode the updraft, diving below where Nia could see before rising once again. It was vertigo-inducing, like seeing the edge of the world. It looked  _ wrong _ .

A single feather dropped from the tail of a bird and began to fall, spinning slowly through the air. She couldn’t help but watch as the wind pushed it this way and that, until it began to approach the edge…

“Nia?” Pyra’s voice snapped her out of it. Nia blinked and rubbed her eyes. They felt…odd. And there was an unfamiliar heat emanating from her core crystal that penetrated deep into her center, returning that feeling of shifting, settling—

She shook her head.  _ Now isn’t the time to worry about weird shit. _

“Yeah?” She turned to her companion with a nonplussed expression.

“Are you alright?” Pyra’s face was shot through with worry. Nia felt a little bad, but…

“I’m fine. Just weirded out by the,” she gestured vaguely towards the Void, “that.”

“Void or not, we can simply fly over it,” Pyra said quietly, “Azurda is rested enough that we can make it.”

Pandy was staring at both of them curiously. “Don’t tell me you’re like those crazies that want to climb the Tree? Bring down an Aegis like in the stories?”

“If they are, they certainly didn’t do their research,” Zeke quipped. “Anyway, I’m going to—”

The cloud sea quivered. Rumbled.

And Exploded.

Something impossibly long and impossibly fast lanced out from beneath both parties, shooting between them and forcing up a blast of air that threw off Azuda’s balance and sent Zeke and Pandy’s ship spiraling into the Sea.

“IT’S THE BEAST!” Zeke screamed, his voice rapidly growing more distant, “RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! I’LL TAKE HIM!”

Nia didn’t see what happened next because Azurda was making a very fancy aerial maneuver that threatened to throw her off his back. She grabbed a tough-looking patch of weeds near his right shoulder and held on for dear life. An impossibly loud metallic roar hit her ears like a wall of sound, overtaking completely the sound of her heart beating triple time in her chest.

_ Bloody crazy. Every. Single. Time. _

The next thing she saw was the  _ thing _ racing past them, its maw stretched horrifyingly wide. It was a sick purple color, its hide pitted and scratched with age, glinting dully in the light of the morning. It looped through the sky, coming back straight towards the three of them. Ether coalesced rapidly in the air. Nia could feel it. That thing was going to—

“ULTIMATE!”

It writhed off course, jerking.

“LIGHTNING!”

As if on cue, the charge in the air returned, every hair on Nia’s body standing on end.

“FURY!”

There—there they were. Wedged between the purple snake thing’s head spikes, one hand each on the most comically large sword Nia had ever seen.

“SLASH!”

They raised the blade above them, lightning crackling across its surface.

_ “MAAAAAAAAAAAAAX!” _

An explosion of light and sound. The screech and tear of metal on metal.

A roar from the beast.

It spun and thrashed, flinging its head about until Nia saw Zeke and Pandy fly off, dropping like a stone into the Sea right below them. It couldn’t have been a comfortable landing, anyway. She winced.

Whatever the pair had just done, though, it didn’t seem to have hindered the beast much; just make it angry. Really, really angry. Because now it was diving towards them at top speed…

Nia hadn’t seen Pyra stand up, but there she was, in a fighting stance, one hand held outward, somehow perfectly balanced even as Azurda swooped towards the erstwhile fisherpeople, trying desperately to beat the purple-snake-beast-thing to them.

“Stop!”

Pyra’s voice was more than just sound. It was a resonation in the ether, a wave of energy perfectly focused and directed laser-straight. It made Nia’s core crystal explode with heat so intense it should have been painful; but all she could feel was the headiness of a power so great it practically outshone the sun.

The beast froze.

It was quivering. Struggling, maybe. But it didn’t move any closer. Azurda came into a splash landing in the cloud sea next to Zeke and Pandy, giving them a telling look. They didn’t waste any time scrambling onto his back next to Nia and Pyra.

Pyra didn’t move or acknowledge them. Only continued to stare straight at the beast, stock-still, hand held out towards its head.

“What’s she doing?” Zeke whispered to Nia. In response, she could only shrug.

The beast suddenly went stock-still. A shock seemed to travel along its body, a low hum and a vibration growing closer until it reached the head.

Its maw opened, an unearthly light within.

“Failure.”

The voice that emerged was grating metal, the grind of gears, the shimmer of static.

Pyra’s eyes went wide. Her stance faltered.

“That you have reawakened is a surprise,” it hissed, moving closer.

Beads of sweat began to stand out on Pyra’s face as she regained focus, visibly gritting her teeth.

“Who are you?” She managed to demand, “how did you get Ophion’s core?”

The beast shivered again.

“That you can fight for control is impressive,” it drew even closer, nearly touching her stretched out fingers. “But you have limits.”

Her core crystal began to shine even as the glow of ether grew even brighter in the beast’s mouth, power building and cycling endlessly. Oh God, was that an ether cannon? In its  _ mouth? _ What the hell was this thing?

“NOW!” Pyra shouted suddenly, and Azurda lifted off so fast Nia could feel her heart in her throat, shooting through the sky at incredible speed. Less than a split second later the thing’s cannon went off, blasting a gaping void in the Cloud Sea.

Nia found herself clinging to Azurda again, hoping beyond hope that that  _ thing _ wouldn’t follow them. What the hell was it, anyway? It didn’t look like any Titan (or other creature, for that matter) she had ever seen. It looked… Metallic. Alien. More like something built than something born.

Now that she thought of it, she felt like she  _ knew _ what that thing was, like it was on the tip of her tongue, if she could only  _ remember _ —

“Nia?” Pyra’s voice. Pyra’s gentle touch on her back. “It’s alright. We got away.”

Nia looked up to see an uncertain smile on her face. She felt pathetic, suddenly, to need… This. Whatever it was.

“Good,” she mumbled, pushing herself back to a sitting position and trying to look nonchalant. “Are you…” Her voice trailed off.

“I’m fine,” Pyra said. But it felt false. Nia thought she should say something, but in that moment couldn’t think of what.

“Well, chaps, I hate to break up the party, but what in the blazes just happened?”

Zeke was squinting between the two of them like he had just seen an armu fly and had half a mind to catch and interrogate it. Nia did not like the feeling. The only sensible response was to stare right back.

“We found your Beast,” she snorted, “and it’s pretty apparent it was too much for you.”

“Too much for  _ me? _ Never. If I had released my  _ full _ power and killed it, you three might have been caught in the crossfire,  _ perish _ the thought.” He wiped his eyes dramatically. “You’re lucky that wasn’t the real Beast of the Deep.”

Nia was utterly dumbfounded. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Pyra facepalm.

“Not the real Beast?!,” she sniped, “You came all this way, almost get your arses  _ killed _ , and you’re telling me that thing  _ wasn’t this legendary beast or whatever? _ ”

Shaking his head, Zeke sighed. “No, all accounts of the Beast of the Deep we’ve read mention either its massive wingspan, or the giant horn crowning its head. That strange creature had neither.” Azurda’s wingbeats seemed to falter at that statement. Or was Nia just imagining it? Nobody else seemed to have noticed…

Pandoria nodded in agreement. “That was more like some kind of… serpent than a beast. The Serpent of the Void!” She declared, grinning over at Zeke. “Has a nice ring to it.”

“That it does, my ever-intrepid Blade. You always do have a knack for these things.”

“You are ever so gracious, my prince!”

“Ugh,” Nia groaned, “Go find a bedroom to do that in later.  _ Please. _ ”

“You think it improper for me to express my most ardent appreciation for my blade? Poppycock! To not do so would be a dreadful impropriety!”

“I think I’m gonna barf,” Nia mumbled.

“And anyway, I have not seen you thank or otherwise express gratefulness towards yours for somehow taming the Serpent!” He chided. “Are you one of those terribly  _ rude _ drivers?”

Her ears folded flat against her head, and the fur fluffed out. “My Blade isn’t even—” She stopped suddenly.  _ Wait, does he mean Pyra?! _

“It’s alright.” Pyra smiled nervously. “It was nothing, really. It didn’t work for long, anyway.” She turned to Nia and gave an almost imperceptible nod.

“Er—” Scrambling to parse the situation, Nia swallowed. “Thank you, though, really. What exactly did you do, anyway?”

Zeke scoffed and shook his head, clearly disappointed in Nia’s ignorance.

“She only awakened me recently,” Pyra cut in smoothly. “We’re still discovering the full extent of my abilities.” Well, that wasn’t  _ strictly _ a lie, right?

“You seem pretty powerful to me!” Pandoria leaned back where she was sitting. “I could feel something like a wave in the ether when you did that. Like, it was almost startling.”

“Huh,” Nia said. “Weird.” The memory of that feeling was still fresh in her mind. But it hadn’t been a wave. Maybe it was, in the same way that a deluge was a drizzle, that a tremor was a titanquake. But Pyra was speaking again, and she should definitely stop thinking about this stuff.

“Anyway, where do you need to be taken? We could use a rest as well—we’ve been on the cloud sea for almost two days.”

Zeke raised an eyebrow. “Fellow travelers, eh? Well, we embarked from Gormott. It’s not overly distant from here.” He looked around. “Looks like you could use a stock-up on supplies as well.”

Suddenly Nia was aware of her own hunger and thirst. So much had happened that she had almost forgotten she needed that sort of thing.  _ I’ve been like this for years, and yet I still forget sometimes… _

Gormott, though. She didn’t like the idea. Being near so many unpleasant memories was never a good thing. She looked over at Pyra, who just shrugged. It wasn’t like they had any other ideas. Nia groaned internally.

“Gormott, then?” Azurda asked. Despite the near-death experience they had just been though, he seemed almost… cheerful? “How far?”

“Half a day south. Just head straight away from the Tree.”

“Finally, somewhere  _ green! _ ” He beat his wings powerfully, banking.

Gormott, then. Oh  _ boy. _

* * *

Malos was brooding again.

Everybody on the ship knew it, mostly because Malos wasn’t one to care about being in a bad mood in public. There were levels to it, even. Under normal circumstances Mikhail or Patroka would demand a sparring match and it would all blow over as soon as he let off some steam. Today, however, was a very special case. A very special case that led to him locking himself in his room. For the whole day. Akhos made a few quips about him “exiting stage right” and “reviewing lines”, but that was mostly to defuse the tension of the whole thing. Nobody dared to go check on him, especially when there were visible clouds of darkness billowing out from under the door.

Nobody except Jin.

He couldn’t see a single thing in the room. Hitting the lights wouldn’t make it any brighter with the miasma this thick, either.

It made his skin tingle slightly, so great was the strength of it. Ignoring the sensation wasn’t hard, but the fact that it was happening at all…

“Jin.”

Malos’s voice was quieter than it had been in a hundred years. Jin turned towards the sound, though he couldn’t see the speaker.

“If you ask me to, I’ll leave.”

“Never.”

His voice was coming somewhere from the opposite corner of the room. Jin thought for a moment before carefully proceeding in that direction.

“The best-laid plans of blades and men, huh?” Malos chuckled bitterly. Jin felt for the bedframe, his hands gently coming upon the carven wood. Keeping himself in contact so he wouldn’t lose his place, he stepped around to the other side.

“We couldn’t have predicted everything that would happen. It’s anyone’s guess who the blame rests with.” Jin kept his voice soft as he felt along the covers.

“With  _ her _ , obviously.”

Jin paused, sighed. “Yes, you’re right…”

“You don’t sound so certain.” A creak sounded from the floorboards.

“Perhaps I misjudged her. Perhaps I was too eager.”

“You always have liked collecting teammates.” The ether was thicker, here. A darkness beyond dark. But Malos’ voice still came through. “I know you tried to convince Minoth, that time.”

Jin froze. That had been over a hundred years ago. Malos hadn’t said a thing… well, then.

“He hates Amalthus even more than I do.”

“Unsurprising.”

Jin sighed and sat down on the bed. He suddenly didn’t feel like fumbling through the dark anymore.

“He got his playhouse, you know. It’s in Fonsa Myma.”  _ Perhaps in another lifetime, he and Akhos could have been friends. _ It was a small regret, but a long-lasting one. “He was just starting to draft the plans when I saw him. He… I think he’s accepted all that happened. Just like that.”

“Foolish,” Malos growled.

Jin reached across the bed until his fingers brushed Malos’ armor. The ether was impossibly dense, a morass of warm darkness that flowed in and out like water.

“I envy him. He can simply stay in his small refuge and ignore the rest of the world.” Jin drew his hand away—and felt Malos catch it in his. His grip was firm, although his hand shook slightly.

“But you wouldn’t. You could never.” It felt like a question—a desire for affirmation. Jin shuffled closer, accepting Malos’ hand around his.

“Of course not.”

There was a long silence between them then, though it wasn’t uncomfortable. After so long, how could it be? Slowly, the darkness began to dissipate, the ether dispersing into the air. Jin could see the outline of Malos’s body sitting on the edge of the bed.

Though when Malos spoke, that hard bitter edge hadn’t left his voice.

“He should let go of that driver of his.”

Jin was careful to keep his voice level. “He can’t help it. It’s only been three days, Malos.”

“So? Clearly she wasn’t everything he thought of her,” he spat. “That’s how it always is. For all of us.”

Jin squeezed his hand, frowned. “Lora was…”

“That’s different! You’ve told me all about her. I can see why you feel like you do,” Malos grumbled, “but so what? One in a thousand are like that. One in ten thousand. So it’s meaningless in the grand scheme.”

Jin could see his eyes now, a deep, cold gray. A gray that encompassed all of him.

“I know.”

The dark in the room cleared, revealing the two blades. But the dark in their hearts would not fade.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If I'm honest, I had no idea what exactly to do with zeke until I read a piece of viking mythology about Thor accidentally fishing up the world serpent. 
> 
> Also, as it turns out, Zeke comes across pretty differently in english?? I played the game mostly in japanese and like. He comes across way hammier and also stupider. So I had to decide which one to write? And ended up somewhere in between?? Zeke who are you?????


	5. Gormott, Then

Sneaking into Torigoth in the dark of night would have been no trouble. After all, Nia had done it many times before. But Zeke had simply casually strolled up to the guard at the gate, presented some kind of seal, and the four were let in with no questions, curfew be damned.

What the hell.

The town was eerily silent compared to the hustle and bustle it would have in the morning. That suited Nia just fine. Still, the Ardanian guards didn’t stop their spying at night. Pretending you had a guarantee of safety was never a good idea—not if you were a wanted person, and the city you were in was sagging under the weight of what felt like half the Ardanian army.

At least they were all mostly asleep this time of night, off in the relay base to the north.

Coedwig Inn’s manager was fast asleep, a small puddle of drool slowly collecting on the counter, but Zeke happily strolled on by, pulling out a single small key. The door at the end of the hall creaked open to reveal a cozy room with two comfortable-looking beds. The lights flickered softly, a few moths hovering around them.

It was so… domestic. Nia lingered in the doorway longer than she should have. When was the last time she had even seen a place like this?

“Coming in?” Pandy— _ Pandoria _ was what it was short for, apparently—flopped backward onto a bed, idly asking the question like it was nothing.

“Um. Yeah.” Nia stepped over the threshold, closing the door softly behind her. The floorboards were old but well-kept, only squeaking a little bit. Sitting down on the end of the nearest bed, she tried to act casual.

“I can take the floor. This room wasn’t meant for this many people.”

Pandoria scoffed. “Nonsense! The beds can fit two people each, silly.”

“Not with you stealing the covers like you do… We got two beds for a  _ reason _ ,” Zeke whined.

“Don’t be such a big baby when we have guests, Prince, everyone is going to get a bed  _ because I say so! _ ” A staticky atmosphere filled the air. Nia could feel the telltale wash of ether, small as it was.

No one argued after that.

And so it was that Nia ended up wide awake in a dark room, three other people sleeping soundly (boy, could Pandy snore). She hadn’t gotten a whole lot of sleep in the past couple of days, she really should try harder…

It hadn’t been like this on the Monoceros. She’d had her own room, with Dromarch’s next door. Plenty of time to be alone with her thoughts. The ship was meant to house many more people than currently lived on it. Also, it was  _ ancient _ — but Mikhail cared for it, often delegating various repair and cleaning duties to other members of the group when needed. Her first extremely glorious assignment as a member of Torna had been scrubbing rust off of the walls in the more disused rooms, sanding them down, and then carefully painting over the patches of bare metal. And Mikhail had wanted it done  _ perfectly _ , that goddamn bloody perfectionist. Dromarch didn’t have it much better, scrubbing the floors with all four of his huge paws. At least he could be chatty with everyone else while he did it.

Somehow, the memory made her ache inside.

That night, Jin had cooked up a massive dinner—a stew he had had on nearly all day, with huge chunks of fatty meat and potatoes so soft they were practically creamy. She could still remember how good it smelled after her hours of hard work. Wolfing it down had been a heavenly experience—something she doubted even the fields of Elysium could compare to. Then it had been an hour of conversation while they all sat there stuffed like pigs, slowly picking their teeth.

Now her cheeks were wet. Dammit, that was going to make the pillow damp. She hated that.

“Nia,” Pyra’s voice suddenly whispered from beside her, “are you awake?”

Nia blinked, took a small, slow breath.

“Yeah,” she replied in a low voice. “Can’t sleep.”

“Neither can I.”

“Mm.”

Silence hung between them for a moment. Nia scrambled to think of something to say.

“I used to stay in places like this with my family.”

“Your family?”

“My sister, my dad, and me. We… Traveled a lot.”

“I see.” Pyra paused thoughtfully. “My… old driver had a house, where we would stay sometimes. But we camped a lot.” Her voice was very, very soft; Nia had to strain a little to hear.

“A house,” Nia said wistfully. “I miss ours sometimes. We lost it to debt.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright. That was ages ago.”

“… If you say so.”

Nia turned onto her side so she could face Pyra. Their core crystals glowed softly in the dark, making Pyra’s face just barely visible. She looked… haunted, in this light. There was a depth to her eyes that couldn’t be touched.

“Can I ask you something?”

“What is it?”

Nia paused, trying to think of a clever way to phrase her question and failing.

“Why do you want to go to Elysium?”

Pyra closed her eyes slowly, seeming to collect herself.

“It’s where I was born. So… Father is there. And there’s something only he can do for me.”

“… Father?”

“Oh! Right. You know him as the Architect.”

A deep frown crossed Nia’s face.  _ The Architect… _

“What is it?” Pyra looked genuinely curious. Nonjudgemental. Nia paused to consider what to say next, but the words ended up spilling out all at once.

“He created this world… He is responsible for everything in it.” Nia swallowed. “Responsible for the suffering.” As soon as she said  _ suffering _ , a look of pure anguish flickered across Pyra’s face before vanishing. She curled in on herself slightly.

“He created me.”

“Uh—” the ramifications of this sped through Nia’s mind.  _ Shit, I accidentally— _ “No, you… You seem very nice. It isn’t your fault.” That did seem to help a little bit. Maybe. Hopefully.

Pyra just looked away. “Can we talk about something else?”

Nia nodded vigorously. She didn’t like dwelling on this subject either. There was something more immediately important, anyway.

“Tomorrow we’ll have to start figuring out how we’re going to get past that thing at the Tree. We’ll need information and supplies, at the very least. Frankly, I have no bloody idea what to do next, but it’ll be a start.”

Pyra nodded, frowned.

“Someone has control of it. Tomorrow when we’re somewhere private, I can tell you more about it. But we’re going to have to figure out who.”

What was it with Pyra and dropping insane pieces of information like it was nothing? Someone was  _ controlling _ that thing? That had a lot of very uncomfortable implications she didn’t want to think about. She swallowed all of her questions, biting her lip.

“Zeke mentioned the zealots—people that try to climb the Tree. We can pretend to be two of them, play dumb about it. I can make a quick disguise for myself in a pinch. We’ll have to find you some different clothes that conceal your core crystal.”

Pyra looked confused. “Can’t we just go as blade and driver? That’s already true, anyway—”

Zeke whimpered, shifting in his bed. Both conversants froze, suddenly very aware that they were talking about sensitive information with two other people in the room. Nothing moved for a solid minute and a half, Nia trying to keep her breathing natural. You know, like she was asleep. She pulled the covers up father, hoping to cover the rest of the core crystal’s telltale glow her shirt didn’t. Pyra seemed to slip into that quiet melancholy of hers.

Nia swallowed, whispered. “On second thought, let’s just—let all this crazy stuff wait until morning. All of it. Won’t get a wink of sleep otherwise. We can just talk about bloody clouds or something.”

That seemed to pull Pyra out of wherever she went when her eyes got all distant like that. “Pfft. Clouds?” A small smile crept its careful way onto her face.

“I dunno. Just pick a topic. I’m not good at this, clearly.”

“I think clouds are very nice,” Pyra whispered diplomatically, “I like the ones that are like feathers, up in the sky. They’re so… Delicate.”

So they were actually going with this. Terrific.

“Cirrus clouds. That’s what those are.”

Pyra looked surprised. “Cirrus?”

“Yeah. They’re formed from ice crystals in the air.” Nia thought of her sister suddenly, asking endless questions about rain.

Pyra seemed to consider this carefully. “Is that where snow comes from, then? Falling from those?”

“No, snow’s different. From much thicker clouds, and all the little bits of ice inside get blown around and stick together…”

“Hmm. What kind of clouds do you like, Nia?”

It was such an utterly childish,  _ innocent _ question, she might have scoffed at it. But that would have woken Zeke up. So she sighed, frowned, and honestly considered it.

“… Thunderheads.”

“Those are…?”

“Big tall storm clouds. They always come with loads of rain, wind, lightning. Inside, they’re complicated, always shifting and moving until they rain themselves away completely.”

“I see. You must like storms, then.”

“Yeah. Rain’s no big deal when you’re… well, you know.” Nia gestured under the covers to where her core crystal was. “Sleet can be a problem, but ice is just frozen water at the end of the day.”

Pyra nodded sagely. “It’s the same thing with me and hot weather. I love it. I don’t need mitts when cooking, either.”

“Cooking?”

“It’s always been a pastime of mine.” That slow, sad smile was on her face again. “I like to collect recipes to try.”

Nia yawned softly. She was finally starting to feel sleepy.

“I could go for something. ‘m starving,” she mumbled, “haven’t eaten in three bloody days.”

This, of course, made Pyra yawn too. “Sorry, I forgot you need that.”

“S’okay. I forgot too.”

“Goodnight, Nia.”

“G’night.”

* * *

They woke up alone, with Zeke and Pandy disappearing from their company as abruptly as they had entered it. At least those two had left a note, with an unusually cheery apology and something about being called away on short notice.  _ Called away by who, exactly? _ Was what Nia wanted to ask, with no small amount of exasperation. Nothing about the pair made the least bit of sense. Oh well—with any luck they wouldn’t be running into them again, and their lives would go back to following the usual rules of logic and reality.

…Hopefully.

Nia cut a piece out of a bedsheet with the knife she kept on her and wrapped it around her head as a makeshift scarf. The soldiers would have been told about a Gormotti driver, probably, and the first thing to do about that was to not appear Gormotti.

The driver part, though. That was its own pickle.

“Here,” Pyra said, handing her a bright red sword. It would stick out like a sore thumb, that was for sure. “Keep this with you. If anyone asks, we’re mercenaries.”

“Uh.” Nia froze.

Pyra sighed. “Look, I’d carry it myself, except you told me that was weird.”

“Well, I mean, blades fighting with their own weapons or going solo exist, but that’s mostly a Noble thing… You know, acting as their bodyguards and stuff… Because they might have two or three. More, if they’re Ardanian.”

“ _ More? _ Things really have changed.” Pyra frowned. “I don’t see how anyone could really have a strong bond with that many blades.”

Nia gave her a confused look. “It’s not about the bond. it’s about status.” She shook her head. “Look, if you really want us to appear as run-of-the-mill mercenary folk, you should change clothes. Cover up your core crystal. Grab a regular sword. You know.”

“Except we don’t have extra clothes. Or Weapons. Or money,” Pyra replied curtly. “Unless you have a better idea?”

Nia was about to deliver a very classy witty retort… but then she actually thought about it. Shit. She really didn’t have a better plan. Not that she ever did. She settled for sighing, taking the sword, and keeping her stupid mouth shut.

The innkeep, completely oblivious to the fact that there were two fugitives under her roof, was disgustingly chipper. She went on and on about how Zeke had mentioned them, and Zeke was one of her favorite customers because he tipped fifty percent a night ( _ Fifty percent? Fifty percent?! Who the hell had money for that?! _ ), and any friends of Zeke’s were friends of hers, and would they like a cup of coffee? And Nia said yes because, well, it did sound pretty bloody good.

“I’m so sorry, I’m really more of a tea person,” was Pyra’s comment, and Helmie (that was the innkeep’s name, apparently) pulled out a fine selection of Gormott’s best without skipping a beat.

When they finally dragged themselves out of the inn because Helmie was of course way,  _ way _ too curious about them, it was nearly noon.

“So, where shall we start?” Pyra asked as they walked. Her eyes looked like moons—she kept glancing this way and that around the town. It wasn’t like Torigoth was all that impressive, really, so Nia couldn’t help but notice.

“Uhm. Did they not have cities of this size 500 years ago, or somethin’?”

Pyra stopped dead.

“The last time I saw Torigoth, it was… abandoned.”

“Abandoned? Why?” Nia couldn’t imagine it. The bustling streets had been crammed chock-full of people since long before she had been alive.

“Well, it was… attacked… and not a lot of people escaped.”

“Oh.”

A long, awkward silence ensued. The kind of silence that couldn’t be swallowed up by din of the city streets; the shouts of merchants and soldiers, the scuffle of feet in the dirt, and the horns and bells of ships coming and going did nothing to conceal it.

At least no one seemed to be paying them much attention. Even so, Nia gave any soldiers she saw a wide berth.

Her first order of business would of course be to find a halfway decent informant. Then Dromarch could handle the rest. He was much better with people than her, after all… She had a nasty habit of being unable to put up with people’s horseshit. Years and years had gone by, and she was still impressed by his ability to wheedle his way into people’s good graces with just the right amount of bowing and scraping.

Ah, but Dromarch wasn’t here, was he. Her link to him felt weak and tenuous, and the last time she had seen him it was while pitching over the edge of the deck to her death…

_ Stop thinking about it. Stop thinking about it. _

Gritting her teeth, she shut everything down other than  _ look for someone who might have information _ . It wasn’t a complicated thing. Just find the nearest adult nopon that wasn’t trying to sell you anything… not that that was ever an easy task.

Several side streets and two alleyways later, there was their man. She even recognized him, his fur immaculately combed as always, about half a size bigger than he had been a decade ago. Well, nopon were like that.

She glanced offhandedly in his direction as they sauntered past, managing the perfect combination of disinterested and curious. Pyra didn’t seem to notice what was going on. Her mind was somewhere far off and away, no doubt.

“Friends new to Torigoth? Turuni not seen you before!” The nopon crooned. “Turuni happy to help friends get around.” They always asked if you were new. It was a good conversation starter.

Nia calculated her pause and turn to convey a theatric surprise. “New enough,” she pointed out coolly. “We’re trying to find our way to a ship out.”

“Psh! Piffle! Friends can check departures board. Ships to Ardain and Indol go twice a day. Though Turuni can find you pass on luxury liner, if you want travel in style.”

His eyes were narrowing—judging their reaction, Nia knew.

“Nah, we’re on a pilgrimage. It’s gotta be more adventurous than that.” She shot him a bawdy grin.

Turuni laughed, seeming to relax. “That going to be premium. Deluxe travel package.” He held out a wing, wiggling his fingers in expectation.

Nia made a show of turning every one of her seven pockets inside out, looking as dismayed as she could manage all the while. Next, Turuni would probably try to offer them a loan—

“Here.” Pyra’s voice. What? Nia turned to see her unpin a single perfect earring. “This should cover the cost. It’s pure ether crystal.”

Turuni just stared.

“That won’t be necessary, really.” Nia said quickly. This was skipping about 5 steps, but… “We can trade favors. There’s no need to—”

“Pretty Blade lady offer piece of armor as compensation? That unprecedented!” Turuni spun in place, looking very pleased with himself. “Turuni think you two very interesting folk. Hmmmm.”

Oh no.

“Turuni can offer this trade: information for information. Can tell you all about ways to get places for price of your names and reason for travel.”

Oh no, oh no, oh no.

“But then you could be giving that away to someone else!” Pyra admonished.

_ Obviously, Pyra. That’s the point! _ Nia frowned deeply, unable to conceal her frustration.

“Information traded become property of Turuni!” He sang, and twirled. “May use as Turuni wish! No guarantees.”

“Listen up, furball, we gotta get where we’re going with no fuss. No names, but we owe you.” Nia’s fingers twitched as she internally reached for the rings that weren’t there.

“Friends strike hard bargain. Turuni have favor for you, but it not going to be easy.”

Nia grimaced. “Alright.” Nopon favors were already notoriously fickle. If this was something “hard”, he could easily be asking for anything from stealing ten of his favorite pastry to killing an unfavorable business partner.

“Shake on it with Turuni!” He raised his wing higher and jumped excitedly.

She sighed, and took his wing. This was going to cause no end of trouble. She could feel it.

The door was gray with age, but the rusty hinges held strong against the wind and fog. For the understory of Torigoth, it was completely unassuming.

“Is this it?” Pyra asked dubiously. “This doesn’t  _ look _ like the house of a debt evader. It doesn’t even look inhabited.”

Nia shrugged. “This is the address Turuni gave us. If no one is here we tell him his debtor hit the ground running.”

“I wonder why he hasn’t come to collect himself. He seemed pretty nervous about it…”

Nia drew the sword from her back and gave it an experimental swing. “I expect we’ll find out.” Her voice was grim. “Do you want this back?”

“That would leave you defenseless, and we’re in a tight space. I can shield myself, at least. Pass it back if you’re overwhelmed.”  _ Unless you want to reveal yourself _ were the unspoken words.

Nia shrugged. “Fair enough.”

And so without further ado, they walked up to the door and gave it a nice firm knock.

And nothing.

Pyra knocked again, louder this time.

No response.

She huffed to herself, and rapped on the door so loud Nia had to cover her sensitive ears. The sound echoed off the steel beams that kept Torigoth suspended over the edge of Gormott.

“Not home?” She asked uncertainly, as if not sure what to do.

“Great news. We can just force our way in and find something to pay him off with.” She was already steadying herself to break the door down when the soft creak of wood came from within.

“H-hello?” A soft, high-pitched voice muffled its way through the door.

Nia blinked. That didn’t sound particularly threatening?

“ _ What do we do? _ ” Pyra mouthed in confusion.

“ _ You think I know? _ ” Nia mouthed back, gesticulating wildly. It wasn’t like she had ever had a job as a repo man. Mercenary, yes, not for very long, but she had done that, and thief, yes, but—

“Excuse me,” Pyra said very politely, “but we’re looking for—”

“Driverpon not here right now!” The voice came back suddenly. “Please come back later!”

“ _ Driverpon? He didn’t say he had a blade! _ ” Nia massaged her forehead. “ _ I hope he’s not military, _ ”

“ _ Sorry, I’m doing my best, okay? _ ” Pyra turned back to the door. “We’re happy to wait for him. Sorry, but we can’t come back later. It’s urgent.”

“U-urgent?!” The voice paused for a few seconds. It started to mumble. “But driverpon said not to let anyone in… Poppi make promise… Even did the ritual…” They heard a sound like the hard stomp of a foot on the floor. “No! Cannot let you in! Driverpon said to b-be brave!”

Nia sighed. To hell with this. She didn’t care what bloody wanker was in there—she just wanted this over with.

She raised her leg and donkey kicked the door as hard as she could.

She heard a delightful crunch and a splintering sound, but the door held. Hm. Nicer construction than she had thought. Still, it couldn’t possibly stand up to her if she put her mind to it.

Almost unconsciously, she began to focus her power on her legs, beefing up the muscle, the bone, each tendon and ligament…

“Stop! You’ll ruin driverpon’s door! He put lots of effort into that!”

“To hell with your door!” Nia growled. And kicked again, throwing all her body weight into it.

It worked, of course. Entirely too well. Her leg went straight through, leaving a splintered hole in its wake, and caught the edge of the wood on the way back. So she was thrown straight onto her back, her head slamming hard against the deck.

For several seconds, all she could see was stars.

“I’m sorry Nia, I just—pffff…fffhahahaha! I’m so sorryhahAHAHAHAHA—” And there went Pyra, doubling over with laughter.

“I’m not cut out for this,” Nia grumbled.

“WAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

She did nothing but lie there in defeat. This whole enterprise was not going to end well, and there was nothing  _ to _ do but accept it.

Some muffled sounds came from inside the house, like the scrape of metal on metal, and a floorboard creaking  _ loudly _ . Then there was a loud pop! sound, and a sigh.

“Poppi, I told you not to use emergency retract button unless it was emergency,” A gentle voice from within admonished.

“But it is emergency! Strange people show up, and now door is ruined!” That was the voice from before, now on the verge of tears.

“Shhh, take deep breath. I’m sure it no big— oh.”

Footsteps—then Nia heard the sound of a lock click and the door swung open as far as her leg would allow. Which wasn’t far. Maybe about 10 centimeters.

“… Hello?” The face that appeared in the doorway was fairly nondescript. Maybe Ardanian. Brown hair, yellowish eyes. A weird blue suit of some kind, dripping wet.

Nia crossed her arms, looking up at his face. Having no idea what to say in this situation, the first thing that came to mind ended up coming out of her mouth.

“Hello. You owe Turuni 100,000G”

Pyra began to cry with laughter.

* * *

A frustrated grin slashed through Malos’ face.

“Looks like the little bastard won’t listen to my commands.”

“Is that so? I COULDN’T TELL!” Patroka screeched, aiming her cannon with gusto. Laser fire grazed the side of the ship as Mikhail threw it into an acrobatic twist. Unfortunately, this also led to her forehead being whipped into the screen. Not that that would slow her down, but she resented it all the same.

Rubbing her brand-new bruise, she switched to semiauto and let off another barrage without missing a beat. If this kept up, it was going to be a long afternoon.

“Pull back, Mikhail. Patroka, Akhos, switch to cover fire. There’s no way we can hold a candle to Ophion.” Malos’s voice was almost lazy.

“ _ As if any shots against this thing are anything but cover fire _ ,” Patroka grumbled. “Ophion” was too nimble for the ancient targeting system to manage. It was too much even for Patroka herself, natural Blade talents be damned, and she resented that. She really did. She  _ hated _ being outclassed.

“Just a little longer, beautiful,” Mikhail purred, absentmindedly petting the Monoceros’ console. God, he was so  _ weird _ about his ship. At least Dromarch kept him distracted half the time. Speaking of the furball…

“So she lived through this,” Dromarch hummed. “I can’t help but feel strangely proud.”

“With the power of the other Aegis on her side, it’s no wonder.” The ship banked hard again, but Malos kept his balance. “But this has bought us time. Time we  _ need _ .”

Patroka punched the trigger, sending another staccato of blasts that drowned out whatever else was said. No more listening to her teammates. Time to focus. She aimed for the odd black scar on Ophion’s forehead, breathing deeply, letting everything else fade away.

Except Akhos’ singing. That always got through somehow. He had a nice voice, she had to admit. And good enough rhythm she could use it to time her shots with his. Too bad he had bad taste in music.

__ Torna, golden land,  
__ Pride of all the Sea,  
_ Torna, golden land,  
_ __ Vast and pure country!

Fire. Fire. Fire. Load. Fire. Fire. Fire. Load.

__ Torna, golden land,  
__ Dreamers all are we,  
_ Torna, golden land,  
_ __ Rulers we will be!

It was some kind of stupid song he had found in an old Tornan children’s book he had stolen. He continually insisted that it was their group’s anthem. His idea of a joke, no doubt. But there were more pressing matters at hand than Akhos’ decidedly poor choice of repertoire.

“Brace yourselves, lovelies! We’re gonna go full burn!” Mikhail gave as little warning as possible before hitting the throttle so hard Patroka could barely move. She eyed the rear camera feed, watching Ophion’s curling mass disappear into the distance.

For several seconds the inside of the ship was a cacophonous mess as everything rattled, blared, or beeped at once, backed up by the roar of the engine.

Then it was over. Heavy Silence reigned.

Patroka squinted.

“… It’s not following us.”

“Oh, thank all the muses,” Akhos sighed, “it’s far too soon for me to die.”

Everyone relaxed at once. Mikhail laughed and whooped, no doubt having considered the whole escapade an exciting adventure. Malos grumbled something inaudible to her. Dromarch licked a paw clean, trying to look dignified. Only Jin declined to comment. Damn strong silent types.

Spinning in her chair, Patroka crossed her arms.

“So, chief. What’s the plan?”

Jin’s expression was unreadable, outside of that same exhaustion he always carried.

“…I think Malos will need to pay his driver a visit.”

“You read my mind.” The grin that spread over Malos’ face was almost audible. “I think it’s high time the Indoline had the fear of the Architect put in their hearts.”

_ More like the fear of you, _ Patroka thought, with much amusement.

* * *

After they dropped Malos off—quickly, and in the dead of night—there was only time to wait. Which put everyone on the antsy side. Patroka started tracking nearby ships and planning raids, as was her wont. Jin and Akhos discussed further long-term plans, information sources, logistics, and other boring stuff like that. They’d all been caught with their pants down, was the truth, expecting the acquisition of the Aegis to be pretty much the end of their hundred-year journey. After all, Malos having the rest of his phenomenal destructive power back would make a lot of things simpler. Or rather, easier to blow up.

But what was that thing Akhos always said—“no plan survives first contact with the enemy”?

Anyway. It  _ was _ high time he get back to working on those plans of his own. When Torna, revolutionary/terrorist/etc. group extraordinaire went up the world tree, it would be with  _ style _ . Panache. Glitz. There was extra time, now. While everyone else chased M— _ the other Aegis _ around, Mikhail, most gorgeous of engineers, would be preparing something very, very specia—

“Hello there.”

“Dromarch!” Mikhail spun around in his seat, a huge grin across his face. He abandoned his reverie (for now) to give the blade his full attention. Mostly. Like at least 80%. 75.

Dromarch padded up next to him, eyeing the mess of diagrams and notes spread out upon the console.

“Did I disturb you?”

“Not at all. I was just… Thinking.”

“If you’ll excuse me, this looks like much more than thinking.”

A single sheet, covered in writing, chose that moment to slip down and flutter to the floor.

Mikhail shrugged. “I think on paper sometimes. The pen is mightier than the sword, you know.”

“Unfortunately, I would not.” Dromarch raised a paw and wiggled the pads with a wry smile.

“Ah. No thumbs. Of course.”

“People often forget. I, however, cannot. The world is not… Built for blades such as I.”

“You and me both, buddy.”

Mikhail had seen quite a few non-humanoid blades in his time, but they were far less common than their more traditional counterparts. It was a sign of having resonated with animals in the past—or at least having highly unusual drivers. A lot of people didn’t quite know how to deal with things like sentient talking birds, or ellook, or tigers, for that matter…

He thought to himself for a minute.

“You know… since the Monoceros is due for upgrades, it would be easy enough to fix that here, at least.”

Dromarch paused, looking surprised. It was pretty funny, considering how  _ stoic _ his usual demeanor was.

“Thank you. I… Well. No one has ever offered me something like that before.” He shuffled on his big paws, looking almost uncomfortable. “I… Appreciate it.”

Grinning, Mikhail pulled out a fresh sheet of paper. “Cmere. I’ll show you what I’m working on, and you can tell me what you need.”

Almost cautiously, Dromarch padded over, dropping down on his haunches to look over what Mik was doing.

“Most of this,” he started, “is all just brainstorming. See, that ship we had Bana’s crew pull up is just an absolute beaut. I didn’t detect a single hull breach. I bet you a thousand G it’s still floating out there, peaceful as can be. A splendiferous hoard of parts.” It was so raveningly exciting. Who knew what kind of fun n’ rusty technology was in there.

“And you would like to go back and strip it down?” Dromarch asked, raising a furry eyebrow. “That could take quite a while.”

Mik waved his hand dismissively. “I’m working on that part. But I wouldn’t need to dismantle it completely or anything. Just cut my way into the engine compartment and see what’s there to find.”

“Easier said than done.”

“Like I said, I’m working on it. Or do you really doubt me, the great Mikhail I-Don’t-Have-A-Last-Name?”

That got Dromarch to smile. Mission #1 accomplished. Now on to #2.

“I would not dream of it, my friend.” Dromarch was looking over the console with much more interest now. “Are those thrusters different?”

“Yes! I’ve devised a way to get more efficiency out of our engine. Fueling is such a chore when you have to steal it all. And I’m thinking these flaps will fold out here, see, to draw more power in a pinch.”

“Malos will be pleased about that.”

“No doubt. He’s such an adrenaline junkie. Patroka too, but she’ll never admit it.”

“It seems to me she doesn’t admit much to anyone.”

To that, Mikhail just shrugged. He’d given up trying to crack her shell years ago.

“Enough about me, though. Or Patroka, for that matter. What would make things around here more convenient for you?”

Dromarch put his chin to his chest, thinking. Mikhail got the sense he was sorting through his thoughts in that slow, measured way of his.

“I could do with a lower dinner table.” His tone was almost apologetic. “And a lower bed. And Akhos has talked about figuring out a way for me to use the cannons, despite the controls…”

“Oh yeah, that! I actually have a few ideas.” Mikhail began scribbling frantically on the lone bare paper sheet. “For starters, we’ll need to replace the triggers with some kind of pedal setup…”

* * *

His name was Rex, and he was unbelievably,  _ obnoxiously _ chipper. To the point it almost made Nia’s head hurt, despite the ice pack he had so helpfully provided. Somehow, she and Pyra had ended up guests in his kitchen, despite their failed break-in attempt.

“And anyway, I don’t know why Turuni needed to send you two. He should have just mentioned it the last time he came over. Poppi, bring dustpan please?”

“Right away Driverpon! Poppi on the job!”

His… Rather strange blade raced off, the floorboards sagging noticeably under her feet as she clonked along. Rex was busy sweeping the broken pieces of door into a nice neat pile.

“Hang on… Came over?” Nia frowned.

“Oh yeah, he’s a great friend of ours. We have him over for dinner every week. I couldn’t have gotten all the parts together for Poppi without him, anyway.”

“Poppi back!”

“Thank you, Poppi. Could Poppi put dustpan right there?”

“Okay!”

He carefully swept everything into the dustpan so Poppi could (very energetically) dump it in the trash. She whirled around and clunked down on one of the rickety chairs next to the table, swinging her legs around as she sat.

“Poppi like Turuni a lot! Turuni teach Poppi lots of interesting things. Financial good sense, Noponity, best way to intimidate people into giving discount…”

“Rex told Poppi not to do that,” Rex admonished.

“Poppi would never! Poppi just think it interesting.” She crossed her arms, which made a noticeable ‘clank’ sound. “It not like Poppi allowed outside anyway…”

Nia noticed then that Poppi had no visible core crystal. What in the hell?

“If you’ll excuse me,” Pyra began, her eyes nervously traveling from Poppi to Rex and back, “Did you say ‘parts’?”

“Aye, well, I suppose the news is out then, haha.” Scratching the back of his head like that, Rex looked pretty sheepish. “I built Poppi. Well, a lot of Poppi. She’s, eauh…”

“Poppi world’s first artificial blade!” She stuck her hand up in the air excitedly. “Poppi built to help people who can’t be drivers!”

“That’s right, Poppi.”

Poppi clenched her fist in a determined way. “Okay. Poppi doing good,” she whispered seriously. Looking over at Rex, she frowned. “Poppi wonder why Rex want to tell this to strangers, though.”

“Aww, c'mon. They don’t seem like bad people.” Rex smiled that big smile.

“They try to break into house!”

“Err… Well, I’m sure this is all big misunderstanding…” He looked over at the two of them, not breaking his smile.

Pyra hurriedly smiled back and stuck out her hand, looking apologetic.

“Please excuse us. I’m Pyra. This is Nia.” Just like her to rescue the situation.

“Uh… Right.” Nia said, trying to nod confidently. “We just… Err… Weren’t sure exactly what to do… Sorry about your door…”

“Poppi impressed at strength of Nia! But think coordination leave something to be desired,” Poppi stated matter-of-factly.

Nia did a double take. “Hey! I’d like to see you do better!”

“Poppi equipped with 7 onboard gyroscopes and accelerometers. More coordinated than Driverpon and Nia combined.”

What was an “accelerometer”? Some kind of weird insult? Whatever it meant, Nia had to grit her teeth to avoid shouting a retort back. She’d already mucked this situation up enough.

“… _ anyway _ ,” Pyra cut in, “we weren’t sure who lived here. We’re happy to help you fix the door. I can cook you a meal if you’d like, too; it’s the least we can do.”

Rex blinked, looking almost surprised. Like he hadn’t expected the offer at all. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

“Don’t worry about the door, that’s a one-person job. But I’ll take dinner, if that’s ok. Feel free to use anything in the kitchen.” He indicated a small icebox next to the counter with a few onions sitting on top of it.

And so it was that Nia and Pyra ended up back out in the streets of Gormott to buy turnips. In Nia’s estimation, it was just about the strangest turn this whole thing could have taken. And furthermore—

“There’s no way we can rib money from this guy. He’s too  _ nice! _ ” Nia rubbed her face. “No wonder Turuni couldn’t bring himself to tell the kid.”

“It’s true you don’t often meet people so… Trusting,” Pyra commented diplomatically, scanning the stalls they passed.

“You think he’s weird.”

“Well…”

“I completely bloody agree. Even apart from that blade.” Nia shook her head. “I grew up here in Gormott, after a fashion. People can be kind enough, but… When it benefits them.”

“Well, if Turuni hasn’t collected, it  _ is _ benefiting him. But I don’t think he’s aware of it.” She stopped at a stall with a brightly painted lettuce leaf on the sign and picked up a turnip, turning it over in her hands. The owner, deep in conversation with another customer, barely noticed the odd pair.

Nia thought for a moment. “Yeah, and I guess we’re making him dinner. Speaking of, what were you thinking?”

“I know a good stew recipe,” Pyra said absentmindedly. She was absorbed in vegetable inspection. “Anyway, it reminds me of my old driver. He was the same kind. Way too nice. More of a down-to-earth sort, though. These three, please.” She handed over the coin Rex had  _ also _ so trustingly lent them, and passed three somewhat funny-looking turnips to Nia. “I think we’ll also need to get paprika.”

Later, Nia would kick herself for thinking too hard about what Pyra had said about her driver. Even if she seemed allergic to discussing her past (which no one could understand better than Nia), that wasn’t a reason to dwell overmuch on something like that and stop paying attention to everything else. You know, like a blind bloody idiot.

The crunch of footsteps behind them went unnoticed, the square-perfect stride that was unquestionably military. “Madam, may I see your papers?”

Nia was startled out of her thoughts, and turned on her heel in confusion to see whoever was behind her. Two Ardanian soldiers. Looking right at her with those funny helmets of theirs.

Ah, shite.

“Say again?” She performatively cleaned out her ear with her pinky, putting her hand on her hip. Best to act ignorant.

“Your Driver papers. Otherwise, your registration number, blade assistance card, military/mercenary passport, AD-420, or alternate form of blade registration and identification information.” The shorter one rattled off the statement like they’d said it a hundred times. Which they most likely had.

“Forgot ‘em. They’re back at the inn.” She yawned to keep herself from gritting her teeth.

The soldiers exchanged looks. “Madam, all drivers in the city are required to keep their registration with them at all times. There are multiple notices urging you to comply.” The taller one gestured to the bulletin board right next to the vegetable stand, where there was a clearly displayed—

Wanted poster with her face on it.

Ah.

She didn’t give them time to match her to that picture—it was a swift sweep of the leg to send the taller soldier crashing into the shorter and she was off, running like the wind, flying down city streets and weaving between the faces in the crowd. Pyra was right behind her, not close, but matching her movements step for step and turn for turn; Nia could feel her presence like another limb, like blood coursed through the air between them. Shouts chased them through the streets, the pair of soldiers demanding they cease resistance immediately. Yeah, right. Nia wasn’t going to end up on the wrong end of an Ardanian spear today. Not today, not yesterday, not tomorrow, not ever, and  _ that was a solid wall that hadn’t been there when she lived here! _

She had to screech to a halt to change direction in front of the bricked-up little alley, which gave their pursuers just enough time to make a grab for her. The shorter soldier just barely caught her wrist. Nia snorted and twisted her arm just so, weakening his grip and freeing herself easily.

They were going to have to do much better than  _ that _ . But they were far too close. The next alley she saw, she turned down, catching Pyra’s gaze. They nodded at one another.

She spun, drawing the sword she carried without a thought. Pyra next to her, that lifeblood flowing even more strongly—

The weapon flared to life, yellow flames licking over the blade hypnotically. It was just about the same size and weight as her own, wasn’t it. Bulkier, with less refinement—but that was alright. She spun it in her hands, launching herself forward at the one who had grabbed her; the motions were patterned into her body, sang with the strange heat that flared in her core crystal once again.

Their weapons clashed. The soldier’s spear had superior reach—but no matter. The blade sang in her hand as she sent a rippling wave of fire through the air. A chorus of ether and steel, of fire that was not fire because she felt no pain when it licked against her skin. She spun in time to see Pyra backflip away from the second guard, and reach out her hand. An invisible instinct passed between them. Nia threw the sword.

If Nia had been a natural with the blade, Pyra was a prodigy. She danced between their assailants, untouchable, destabilizing them and sending one spinning before throwing the sword back to Nia. Nia whirled, delivering a powerful slash before returning it once more. The exhilaration, the delirium of battle overtook everything as they seared through their quarry.

And then it was over.

Nia looked down at the unconscious, burned bodies of the two soldiers, and felt only satisfaction. She held Pyra’s sword, poised to finish them off.

“No, don’t.”

Nia blinked. “What?”

“There’s… No reason to.”

Nia almost shouted back in anger at that. They were Ardanians, for the Architect’s sake! They’d doubtless hand off Pyra to some bigwig looking for clout, and would proudly present Nia’s corpse back to Indol once they figured out what she was. They had  _ every _ reason to kill them. What on Alrest was Pyra thinking?

She took a deep breath, but still couldn’t keep the quiet fury from her voice.

“The minute anyone finds them, wakes them up, and starts asking questions, Mor Ardain will come after us. They’re  _ already _ after me!”

Pyra closed her eyes, a dark expression passing over her face.

“We should be getting back.”

For some reason, Nia couldn’t bring herself to argue. Something hovered on the edge of her memory that she couldn’t identify. Something… Painful. Something that took her back to the moment she took her sister’s—

No. No thinking about that. No more thinking at all.

She picked up the abandoned turnips and turned to go, Pyra falling easily into step beside her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nia knows katate hazushi because... because I said so.
> 
> I would like to thank everybody for the kind response to this fic. I honestly wasn't expecting this much at all! From the bottom of my heart, thank you.


	6. Consequences

Nia took the opportunity to ask if she could use the shower, mumbling something about being sweaty from the sun. Rex, Architect save this soul, enthusiastically offered her three different kinds of soap and a bottle of nopon oil shampoo. What even  _ was _ nopon oil? Was thinking too much about it even a good idea? Did she  _ want _ to know?

Yeah, it wasn’t important. Not after a lively afternoon brush with local law enforcement. Mikhail had always said a bath made him feel fresher after a run-in with the authorities. Or something like that. Most of what came out of his mouth was horseshit so you learned not to pay too close of attention.

The bathroom was tiny, if neat and clean. A mirror that was only a little cracked hung above a small sink with two toothbrushes stuck in a blue mug. White tile lined the floor, along with an old woven rug. Nia locked the door tight with a creak.

She caught her own face in the mirror as she disrobed. It looked… Unfamiliar. Sure, it had all the same features in all the same places, but something was off. Out of place. Something invisible she couldn’t identify.

Leaning closer, she stared herself down. Blonde hair, sharp features, and hazel eyes stared back. Was that a flicker of some other color in her eyes? No, that was just her. Nothing was different. Same tattoos, same freckles, same funny eyebrow that was a little shorter than the other one, same mouth, same odd scar running straight down her chest…

Her core crystal shone faintly in the soft light. Blue with those oily streaks of red, just like always. Except—

She almost had to squint to see it, it was so subtle. But there it was: a spiderweb of cracks beneath the surface, glowing a soft green. They radiated out from within, a breaking wave of imperfections that drew her eye further inward, her heart catching in her throat as she saw the  _ extent _ of what had happened to her.

_ Shattered. That’s what she said. _

_ And put back together again. _

_ I shouldn’t be alive. _

She tore her eyes away and sat down heavily on the cold floor.  _ I wish Dromarch were here. He would tell me everything is all right. He would tell me… to keep on going. _ Drawing her knees up, she buried her face between them and tried hard not to cry. A few rebellious tears escaped her tightly-closed eyes, betraying what little control she had left.  _ To keep on going. _ How could she?

_ Why did I do that? Why did I betray my crewmates, my friends? For someone I don’t even know? _

And what she had got in return was…  _ This _ . Being resurrected some strange  _ thing _ she didn’t recognize. Something that shouldn’t exist.

She gritted her teeth. So? She shouldn’t exist anyway. It wasn’t like being a flesh eater was a happy-dandy thing. But hadn’t that been different? Hadn’t that been to keep her sister’s memory alive, to tie their lives together inseparably because hers had been torn away from her far too soon?

God. What she had done was even dumber with that in mind. She had forgotten that to throw away her own life was to throw away another in the process…

_ What do you think of me now, Father? Sister? … Dromarch? _

“Dromarch…” She muttered. Their bond flickered faintly, the ether tugging at her just enough to feel uncomfortable. She wiped at her eyes angrily. Well. She shouldn’t be getting all mopey about this. At the very least, she knew he was alive.

When she turned on the shower, it didn’t feel right until the water was as hot as it would go.

* * *

“So, tell me about it!” Rex plunked down at the table, having just finished washing up.

Pyra blinked, setting down her teacup. Something hadn’t felt right since Nia had left, but she decided not to say anything. Rex was utterly oblivious and would probably laugh it off.

“Tell you about what?” She carefully chose to ask.

“About being blade and driver! No one in my family had the potential, y’see. Well, I might, but the only chance to resonate you get around here gets you conscripted into the army, and I’m too busy working on Poppi for that.” Boy, could he yammer. He really did remind her of Addam. Ah… Better to respond swiftly than to think too hard about that.

“Well… Nia only resonated with me only a short time ago,” (not strictly a lie) “but I suppose I can try. What do you want to know?” She sipped her pleasantly-scorching-hot tea.

“Ah… Er… Well, what is it like? What powers do you have? What is the bond between driver and blade, exactly?”

With as fraught as the first two questions could be, she decided to focus on the third.

“Don’t you have such a bond with Poppi?”

“Well, she has a wireless ether link with her weapon, but not with me. I’m not even sure how I would begin to build something that could do that.”

“Poppi want to know too! Need to know everything about being real blade so Poppi can do her best!” She was doodling something on a scrap of paper with a piece of charcoal, but her eyes were bright and focused directly on Pyra. Pyra’s heart went out to her. She was just curious and trying her best… this poor girl, the only one of her kind…

Pyra straightened her back and nodded. “Well, the bond is formed when a blade resonates with a driver, of course. The resonation in the ether produces a self-propagating wave that is matched in their bodies.”

“Wow! That very complicated! Do all blades know things like that?”

“Er, well, not exactly…”

Rex turned to Poppi. “Blades have knowledge they born with. It come from interaction with past drivers.” He looked back at Pyra. “Still, that’s very specific. I thought only Indol had people with knowledge like that. Are you from there?”

“I… Don’t think so,” Pyra said very carefully. “I don’t feel any special connection to that place.”

“Hm.” Rex seemed to think carefully. “If it really is just a wave in the ether, it should be measurable. But that’s hard to do…”

Pyra frowned. “That was the simple explanation, really. There are still things that… I don’t understand.” Again, not  _ strictly _ a lie. “The important part is that it’s physical, mental, and emotional. And grows in strength the closer the blade and driver grow as people.”

“Physical and emotional, too?”

“One in mind, body, and soul.” She took another sip of tea. “… So they say,” she quickly added.

Rex looked straight at her with a searching gaze. She felt uncomfortable, like she was being… Analyzed.

“But what do  _ you _ think? Like, what’s your take on the whole thing?” He asked.

Pyra blinked. “What do I think? I…” She had to consider the question, unexpected as it was.

Some unpleasant memories came to the fore first, but she did her best to push them aside and think more analytically about her experience. Lora, Jin, and Haze were first, of course. Those three were closer than she had ever seen. They seemed… Synchronized. Communicative. To understand things unspoken.

Meanwhile, Hugo… No, she couldn’t. She couldn’t push that memory away well enough. Her grip on the teacup tightened, and she had to carefully take a sip to hide her expression.

Instead, Addam. Her bond with Addam. He was… He had never felt like a partner, exactly. More like a teacher. A parent. Someone watching over her, helping her along as best he could. It wasn’t that that bond had been weak, just… Different.

And then there were the numerous other blades and drivers she had seen. The way they interacted was different every time, the strength of the bond varying wildly from pair to pair.

“I think,” she began, attempting to parse all this information, “that it’s always different. Blades and drivers are just people. They influence each other through the bond, but… To develop it or not is their choice. And the way they express it is up to them as well. Like any relationship. For better or worse, they are both changed at the moment of resonation. But the extent of that change…” She trailed off, not sure how to continue.

“You make it sound like it’s nothing special. That can’t be true!” Rex frowned. “I mean, everyone acts like it’s the greatest thing ever.”

“Ah, well… If you want it to be, I suppose it can be…”

“Poppi want to have strong bond! And help lots of people with help of Rex!” Poppi drummed her feet against the floor excitedly.

“Rex want to help people too.” Rex smiled over at her.

“Looks like you’re well on your way then, Poppi,” Pyra commented. Poppi beamed brightly.

Pyra turned the cup around in her hands, thinking. She’d never really considered the nature of the bond all that deeply. For her, it simply… was. For some reason, she thought of the fight in the alleyway, of the ease with which she and Nia had operated together. Such a thing would normally take years of training. Was it because Nia was…

A door slammed in the hallway, making the lights flicker.

“Hey. Thanks.” Nia sauntered in, her hair still wet. “I put the towel in the washbin.”

“Hey, anything for a friend, you know?” Rex leaned back comfortably in his chair.

Nia stared at him like he had grown a horn. “Friend? We barely know ye!” Her face was screwed up in its overly animated way into something between surprise, shock, and disgust. It made Pyra want to laugh.

“First have a punch-out, then drink to forget. Once you’ve forgotten, the friendship’s all set! That’s rule 6 of the Salvager’s Code.”

“The Salvager’s  _ What? _ ”

“But we didn’t… Have a fistfight, and we’re not drinking,” Pyra pointed out helpfully.

“Oh, come on, you guys! It’s close enough.”

“Are you even old enough to drink? Or to salvage, for that matter.”

“I’m 15, I’ve been salvaging my whole life, and it’s not like I’ve been running around drunk,” he said very firmly, as if he got this question a lot. “What did you think I was doing when you showed up?”

“Right, sorry,” Nia replied sardonically, “I forgot that everyone can just salvage in their house. I pulled up a good haul of dust bunnies just the other day.”

Rex laughed, and gestured over to the back wall. Some kind of winch system was set up there, the cable suspended over a conspicuous trapdoor in the floor. Both were carefully surrounded with bright yellow stripes painted on the floor and walls. There was also a small sign that said “CAUTION!” in machine-precise writing, with little flowers drawn all over it.

“My place is right over the cloud sea. I can’t help but make use of it.” He looked  _ very _ proud of himself.

Nia looked at Rex, then at Pyra, then back to Rex, and then back at Pyra. Pyra just shrugged.

“Sure, alright, I s’pose we’re… Friends…” Nia replied cautiously.

Rex  _ beamed _ .

* * *

No reasonable person would be up this late wandering about the Praetorium, but then, Zeke Von Genbu (Bringer of Chaos) was not a reasonable person. There was no  _ glitz _ in being reasonable. No  _ excitement _ . And you did not become the most powerful driver in Alrest by being a boring old sod.

… At least, he thought so.

But really, he was up for a pretty pedestrian reason, which was that he couldn’t sleep. He was too wound up and his implant itched and Amalthus had given him another mission, and told him all about the Aegis, which he had to have. To have Pandoria on his right hand and the most powerful Blade of all time on his left,  _ that _ would be the pinnacle of his achievements. And his father could go sod himself. He’d be begging for his beloved son, now so powerful and distinguished, to return, and Zeke would simply laugh and say—wait a minute, who was that?

The low-burning ether lamps revealed only silhouettes at this distance. Whoever they were, they were  _ tall _ . And walked very confidently, strutting over the grounds like a prize rooster.  _ And _ weren’t wearing the telltale robes of an acolyte off to a late-night prayer session. Curious and curiouser.

Zeke faded into the shadows, using his ingenious stealth mode to swiftly approach. From behind he could see muscular arms and legs and wide shoulders to compliment them, atop a deceptively narrow waist. Spiky hair and a cocoon of intricately layered armor completed the picture. Whoever this person was, they were a warrior, clearly ready for battle at any moment. One of the monks? But they didn’t wear armor like that. And they were all Indoline; wiry, bony sorts.

Now that he was following them, he could tell there was something extremely strange about them. Zeke could feel something like a fog in the ether, a wisp of smoke and shadow that trailed behind his quarry as they walked. Or maybe it was just him. He got weird feelings in his implant all the time and they usually didn’t mean anything.  _ Damn, if only Pandy were here. _

Well, there was nothing to it. Only one option now.

Zeke skulked up alongside them and cocked his hips confidently. “What’s up, beautiful?”

The fist that hit his face wasn’t the largest one he had ever experienced, but boy, did it hit  _ hard _ . Hard enough that he was thrown into a wall with a loud  _ crack! _ sound. Fortunately, his skull was harder, as Pandy so often complimented him.

“My,” he commented as he slid to the ground. “Not the greeting I was expecting, but I’ll take it, I s’pose.”

His mysterious attacker paused, and turned. Zeke stared up into a pair of gray-purple eyes set in a solidly chiseled face. …Which was not a face that he recognized. Hm.

“I guess I should apologize.” They leaned over, putting a hand on their hip. “But you have to understand, people creeping up on you in the dead of night  _ don’t _ generally have your best interests in mind.” A smirk crossed their face.

“Oh, certainly, certainly, my good man. But this is the  _ Praetorium _ . The safest place in Alrest!” Zeke pushed himself up, smiling. He stuck his hand out. “Zeke. You must be new here.”

“You seem awfully eager to get along with someone that just threw you into a wall.”

“Better than  _ not _ getting along with them, of course.”

They seemed to consider this for a moment before shrugging and taking his hand. Their grip was firm, solid as a rock. Excellent.

“Do I get to learn your name, or will you continue to be a mysterious attractive stranger?” Zeke gave them his best simper.

“Hmmm… Malos. Though don’t go wearing it out.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it. What brings you here, Malos?”

Malos’s eyes seemed to drill into him then, picking him apart from beneath the skin. Zeke had seen a lot of people undress him with their eyes, but this was an entirely new experience. Analytical. As if Malos understood something he didn’t about himself. Zeke didn’t want to admit that it made him uneasy, but… well. It certainly did.

Then, like it had never happened, the feeling was gone. All that stood before him was a big brawny interloper up at an ungodly hour of the night. …Maybe it had just been him?

“I seem to be lost. And here at the wrong time. …Something I usually try to avoid, you understand.” Malos spread his hands with defeat.

“Well, my friend, I’m quite happy to show you around. Anything for someone as cute as you.” Zeke winked. “To a bed, perhaps?”

“Oh, come on. I’m not tired  _ yet _ ,” Malos smirked as they walked around the corner.

* * *

Whatever brand of idiot that guy had been, Malos had no idea, but he was dumb enough that Malos had deemed him not worth killing. That is, if he could live after a blow to the head that could punch through walls. Well, if he  _ did _ live, things might get interesting later, which Malos liked the idea of very much. After all, if you were going to destroy the world soon, you might as well have a good time in the process. Leaving room for one exceptionally horny idiot to come back and bother you again couldn’t cause all that much damage, after all.

Either way, he was alone again, with the added bonus of having been walked very close to where Amalthus had moved his room to. Not that Malos needed direction, but the hallowed halls of the Praetorium were stupidly twisty. Having a straight-line sense of where your Driver was didn’t help you with architecture designed by madmen speaking in tongues.

But you know, looking for the largest, most opulent door in the place was never  _ too _ difficult.

He was waiting, as always. Though their connection was vestigial, underdeveloped, it was impossible to ignore when they were this close to one another.

The door shut like a commandment, and all that was left was the darkness, yielding like clay before him. His driver sat on the edge of the overwrought bed, dressed in a simple shift. He looked so small without his priestly robes. Stick-thin like all Indoline, skin a blue that was bordering on sickly. He was facing away, putting the bed between himself and Malos.

A useless measure. Physical barriers meant naught to a bond such as theirs.

“You have returned.”

Amalthus’ voice was carefully controlled, though to conceal what Malos could not say. In the past he might have said fear. But now…

“How long has it been? A hundred years?” Malos stopped where he was, smirking out the words. Amalthus kept exact count, he knew. The man was meticulous like that.

“More.”

There was a silence, then. A great pause in the fabric of their being.

“Why have you come?” Amalthus seemed to collect himself, as if the answer was some awful prophecy he couldn’t avoid.

“To tell you your dream will soon be fulfilled. The dream of all humanity.”

“And if I plan to stop you?”

Malos laughed. “Stop me? Why? When you’ve been doing such a good job of it yourself?”

“Do not mock me. We could not be more different.”

“Humans are cruel… but you have to be the cruelest. You won’t even admit it to yourself.”

“ _ Silence. _ ” Amalthus growled. “You know nothing of what I aim to achieve.”

This conversation was getting predictably off-track. The man could waffle all he wanted; Malos was here for something specific.

“I know your little proclamation about not traveling to the World Tree has teeth… Or shall I say, an ion cannon, in its mouth.”

Amalthus paused, folding his hands carefully. “So this is why you have come. To beg information from me.”

“I don’t beg.” Malos summoned his sword into his hand, ether filling the room. The dark instantly deepened, any last corners of light fleeing for their lives.

However, as he rounded the bed, a soft glow became visible. Amalthus turned to face him—there was a telltale blue glowing shape there. In his forehead. Had he—

“You will,” Amalthus said.

The wave of pain that went through him was instant. He dropped to his knees, the sword dissipating in his hands. He couldn’t—he couldn’t  _ breathe _ couldn’t think couldn’t move no  _ ether _ help can’t breathe

Amalthus’ hand on his head, seizing his hair roughly. “You will torment me no longer. I have been counting the days for one hundred and twenty three years, waiting for you. You half-broken, misbegotten…” He hissed a sigh through his teeth, but Malos barely heard him. His vision was tunneling, white noise filling his hearing. And then  _ something _ began to push into his  _ head _ —

“All is as it should be.  _ Sleep _ .”

The command reverberated through him like a wave. Not just a suggestion but an  _ imperative _ to his weakened body, his sundered core crystal. He struggled faintly, feeling his limbs grow heavy.  _ I need… Out… I need… To get back to… _

Amalthus’ hand on his face. “ _ Sleep, my blade. _ ”

As he collapsed, darkness consuming him, he suddenly thought of Jin. His addled mind was attempting to put together an apology when unconsciousness finally took him.

* * *

The stew was piping hot and smelled like Elysium itself, seasoned to perfection by Pyra’s apparently very discerning taste. Or maybe Nia was just tired from running around all day. Who knew.

As soon as the food was announced done, Rex immediately folded his last poker hand and pulled a few chipped bowls and spoons out of a cabinet. Poppi very soundly trounced Nia with a straight flush to her two pair, and then it was time to eat.

The table was set, colorful mats on each place with a bowl and spoon to accompany them, and Pyra placed the pot and a shiny copper ladle down in the center of the table. Nia, who didn’t give a rat’s arse about manners anymore, fell upon it with intense force, filling her bowl to the brim and stuffing her mouth as full of the stuff as she could. Bloody hell, she was so hungry. So,  _ so _ hungry. She could consume ether like any blade, which could keep her going for an extremely long time, but her fleshy bits screamed for something with more substance. The texture, the smell, the feeling of the food settling in her belly, and holy shite, the  _ taste _ —

The flavor hit her all at once, as soon as she stopped eating at breakneck speed. It had a familiarity she couldn’t ignore.

She dropped her spoon. The other three at the table looked over at her.

“Pyra… What kind of… What’s this recipe?”

Pyra blinked, confusion passing over her face.

“Huh? It’s Ardun Pot-Au-Feu. I’m sorry, it’s supposed to have meatballs, but we—”

“—didn’t have any because they take too long to prepare,” Nia finished. “Yeah, that’s how it always is.”

She stared down at the meat and vegetables floating innocently in her bowl. Cut in all different ways, from many hands having varying skill levels with kitchen knives.

Jin’s stew. This was his stew. It was exactly the same. Even the little things that made it different made it more the same. That little variation from throwing in whatever food they had on hand…

He was cold, so cold, but the food he made was simply divine. The epitome of comfort food, home cooking, the perfect meal after a long day of rousting core crystals from unsuspecting Indoline transports. The laughter of everyone around the table was the perfect final seasoning, the teasing, even Akhos’ terrible,  _ terrible _ theater jokes… It all added to the warmth and the comfort and the belonging.

_ Don’t cry, don’t cry… that would just be stupid. Stop thinking about it, dammit! _

“…Nia? Are you alright?” Pyra asked the question before anyone else could say anything.

“I’m  _ fine _ ,” Nia responded, a little too loud. She gritted her teeth and picked up the spoon, forcing down another mouthful.

“If—if there’s a problem with the recipe I can—”

“It just  _ reminds me of something someone I respect made _ . Okay? It’s  _ no big deal. _ ” She refilled her bowl forcefully, splashing some of the broth onto the table. On accident, she caught Rex’s sheepish gaze. He was just  _ sitting there _ , staring at her like she was some kind of freakshow.

“Aren’t you going to  _ eat _ ?” She snapped at him.

“It’s too hot.” He sounded sheepish. “I burned my tongue earlier. I just need to let it cool…”

“Well  _ I _ think it’s perfectly fine.” It didn’t matter to her if the human shrimp was some kind of weakling that couldn’t even eat hot soup. She went back to shoving it into her mouth as fast as she could, so fast she could barely taste it.

“Poppi very sorry she cannot eat Pyra’s food.” Poppi had a bowl in front of her which had only a little in it. “It smell very nice though! Poppi’s olfactory unit work just fine!” She lowered her face to the bowl and took a long, exaggerated sniff, before popping into a big smile.

“Thank you very much, Poppi.” A little smile crept over the corner of Pyra’s mouth. “I wouldn’t be against trying to make something you can eat, you know.”

“Poppi eat ether crystals and other minerals for materials and power. That hard to cook…”

“I’ll think about it.”

Nia bowed her head so her bangs covered her eyes as a few tears began to collect there.  _ No no no no no no no no. _

She could hear Rex blowing nervously on his spoon before taking an exaggerated slurp. “It’s great, Pyra! Er… Lovely!”

Awkward silence hung over the table for at least a minute. Nia’s hand shook as she spooned up her stew, spilling some onto the table.

“Uh… Sorry…” She muttered, and began to stand up to find a towel. Or something.

Pyra abruptly pushed her chair back, making a loud, imperative screech that filled the silence. Without missing a beat, she stood. “I’ll help you clean that up, Nia.”

“No, it’s no problem…” Nia was careful to keep her eyes hidden and her voice level.

“No, really, I’ll give you a hand.” Pyra leaned over and took Nia’s free hand, apparently not noticing it was balled into a fist. Her grip was firm, but gentle. She tugged Nia away from the table. Nia couldn’t bring herself to resist, and followed along as Pyra led her… Definitely NOT towards the little embroidered dishtowels by the sink.

It was down the hall and through the first door Pyra saw, which led into a room full of mechanical parts and pieces strewn everywhere, a table covered in tools, and some kind of weird rack. Not that Nia paid all that much attention to it.

Pyra closed the door behind them softly.

“Listen,” she said quietly, “you don’t have to eat it if you—”

“It’s not  _ about _ the food!” Nia blurted. “Food’s fine. It’s great. Really good.” She kept her eyes  _ firmly _ fixed on the floor. No crying. This was so stupid. Everything was so stupid. She should be dead, and she was around a bunch of people she barely even knew and the goddamn  _ cops _ were on their arse and—

“Then—what is it about? Do you need to be left alone?”

“I’M FINE!” Nia bared her teeth, flattening her ears against her head. She felt the skin down her spine pull itself into goosebumps.

Pyra took a step back, shock passing over her face. “I’m sorry—I—well, you’re clearly not particularly fine. I just wanted to help. I just—I know things have been—”

“It was Jin’s.”

“What?”

Nia took a deep breath, trying to let herself relax. Sighing, she sat heavily on the floor.  _ God, I hate… This. _

Slowly, she raised her head to look at Pyra, but didn’t meet her eyes.

“That recipe was just a lot like… Jin, a comrade of mine, made it a lot. Back in… Back before we met.”

Pyra’s eyes were as wide as moons. “…Jin?”

“Yeah. He was sort of… The leader of the group I was in, that pulled you out, y’see.”

Nia watched as the fact ran through Pyra’s head, eliciting… Something. Guilt, maybe? Oh, good Architect.

“Listen, none of this was your fault. You don’t have to feel bad about it. It was my own terrible decision-making that got us here.” Nia wiped her eyes, shaking her head. The last thing she wanted to do was make the woman who had saved her life feel bad about it.

“… Was this Jin an ice blade? With a horned mask?”

What?

“Er… Yes?” Hang on, this conversation was taking a lot of left turns.

“I see. And… Malos was with this group of yours.”

“Yeah. He was the oldest member… Well, he and Jin. I had only just got there, understand. Me and Dromarch. My blade. We were sort of captured? There was an Indoline prison ship—”

A lot of things were tumbling out of her mouth, all in the wrong order. None of it made sense.

“—Jin rescued us, and then we met the rest of the crowd. When we found you you were, your face was… Well we just sort of busted in, since the ship was so old there was a lot of rust from the cloud sea. Malos just tore all the doors off. He’s always doing things like that. Uhm.”

“Jin and Malos…” Pyra mumbled, a mix of at least four emotions fighting for dominance on her face. Had she heard a word of that? Nia kinda hoped she hadn’t.

Pyra spoke up again before Nia could think about it too hard.

“If you’ll excuse me… I didn’t want to pry too much, but do you know how Jin and Malos came to work together?”

“I…”

The truth was, she didn’t really know. Well, she  _ did _ , but not in a specific sense. Pyra looked at her earnestly, something between hope and fear smattered across her face. Nia had to say  _ something _ . It would be… It wouldn’t be any good not to.

“Our group is… Well, everybody in it is people the Praetorium has tried to kill. And Malos and Jin were the first two.” She paused meaningfully. “Jin told me… Torna was formed to oppose that. Indol, I mean.”

“He called it… Torna?”

Her voice was small. Very, very small.

“Yeah, after… The Titan. The dead one. From the legends.”  _ Wait a minute… _

Unbidden, Jin’s voice rose in her head.

_ “There were once three more major Titans that sailed the cloud sea. No more”. _

Was that it? Was that what Jin had promised to tell her?

“Are you the one who…?” The words escaped Nia’s mouth as easy as breathing.

Immediately, Pyra looked terrified. She clamped down on her mouth with her hands and shut her eyes tight.

“Please. Don’t ask about that,” she begged. “I know I haven’t told you much about me, but please. Just leave that alone. Please.”

Her hands were shaking, Nia noticed. Shaking with that sort of awkwardness that meant she was trying to hold it back. Nia shut her mouth tight, mentally kicking herself. No, dammit. If only Dromarch were here, he’d know the right thing to say…

“Okay, I…I won’t. I’m sorry. For bringing any of this up.”

Pyra nodded mutely. Utterly silent, she sat down across from Nia, drawing her knees to her chest.

They hung like that for all too long. Nia was too afraid to say anything else. So in the end, it was Pyra that spoke up first, with a deep breath.

“Elysium is just the only chance I have.” Slowly, she opened her eyes. “It’s all I have. There’s nothing else. Once we’re there, you can… Do as you like. Go back to your group. I know you must miss them.”

Nia tried to object, but Pyra was right. There was no point in arguing about it. But bloody hells, she felt  _ terrible _ for shoving that on Pyra. It wasn’t her fault Nia had willingly chosen to alienate herself.

“I… Elysium. Yeah. We’ll find a way to get there. Somehow.” Nia wrung her hands together. “Listen, you don’t have to feel bad about—”

There was a polite rapping on the door. It swung open swiftly.

“I came to check on you. Are you two alright?”

Oh, good Architect. It was Rex.

He seemed to absorb the two sitting on the floor slowly, his eyes panning from Pyra to Nia and back. Maybe he would read the room and leave—

He pushed open the door wider. His eyes sparkled.

“Wait, did you say Elysium? You’re trying to get to  _ Elysium? _ ”

Oh, no.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> horrendously undercooked, but I'm throwing this out there anyway. 
> 
> Writing feelings is... hard. Even harder when the characters in question are pretty much bathed in trauma, but you know. It's the important part, really.


	7. Growing Pains

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to nayt0reprince for betaing this chapter. I needed the support, to be honest. Couldn't have done it without you dude!

“C’mon,  _ pleeeeease? _ ” Rex begged. Nia scrubbed the pot even harder, trying to ignore him. Poppi, blissfully wrapped up in helpfully putting everything away, wasn’t there to stop his nagging.

“Really, you  _ have _ to take me with you! If Elysium is real, it could help so many people! We wouldn’t have to worry about losing all the titans anymore!”

Nia put all her energy into scraping off a particularly tough piece of grit.

“And then Uraya and Mor Ardain could stop fighting! And they’d leave Gormott alone. Wouldn’t that be nice, at least?”

“Right,” Nia growled, “because giving them more land to fight over would solve everything.” Her hands were turning pink from the effort, the spot long since clean. Didn’t Rex know when to  _ stop? _

“It would still be better than what we’ve got now,” he pouted.

Sighing, she threw down the sponge, suds splashing everywhere. She whirled around and rounded on Rex.

“First of all, that was a private conversation.  _ Private. _ How much of that did you hear, anyway? Do you make a  _ habit _ of eavesdropping on supposed friends of yours?” He looked surprised, but not frightened. Damn this body, it was so  _ short _ . How was she supposed to intimidate people this way?

“I dunno, something about a dead Titan. But there’s plenty of those. I don’t see why that would be all that secret.”

“It’s not  _ about _ secrets. it’s about being a rude little bastard that can’t stay out of other people’s business.”

“Okay, okay! I won’t do it again!” He seemed to be genuinely regretful… for about 2 seconds. “But I  _ really _ need to get to Elysium. Really really.”

“Why don’t you just go by yourself, then? Nobody’s stopping you.” She snapped.

He just kind of stared at her then, as if his teenage mind had been utterly boggled by the suggestion. He’d never even  _ considered _ it, had he. Swallowing, he opened his mouth uncertainly for a rebuttal.

“A-and get shot down by Uraya like all the Zealots? No thanks.”

“Tsch. As if Uraya has  _ time _ for that.” Nia turned back to the dishes. As if she would ever consider bringing someone as inexperienced as Rex along, like this was just some kind of lighthearted little adventure from a storybook.

Wait a minute.

“No, really. Why would  _ Uraya _ be doing that?” She asked slowly.

Rex blinked. “Well, I hear with all the other Titans caught up in their own affairs, and Mor Ardain trying to control Gormott while fighting and stuff, Uraya decided to take up protection of the World Tree. Because of the treaty with Indol and all that.”

Nia blinked. “Huh.”

“That’s what the other Salvagers tell me, anyway. They say it’s some kind of play to try to get more core crystals rationed from the Praetorium. I dunno though, I’m not much good at all this politics stuff.”

“You’re not that bad, if you can remember all that.”

Rex just shrugged. “Have to pay attention to the rumors if I’m gonna get at all the good salvaging spots.”

_ But that has nothing to do with salvaging! _ Was what Nia thought, but she decided not to question it too much. The kid was living in la-la land anyway.

Pyra finally piped up from where she was wiping down the table.

“Excuse me, Rex, did you say core crystals are being… Rationed? Is there a shortage?”

“Huh? No, Indol’s always done that. You know, because of the cleansing?”

Pyra froze. “Right. The… Cleansing. Sorry.”

Nia swore under her breath, glad neither Rex nor Poppi could see her face. What, was the whole cleansing ritual not a thing 500 years ago? She really needed to try harder to fill Pyra in. It was what she was along for, anyhow…

“Funny thing to forget,” Rex mumbled.

“Do your job and dry this off,” Nia cut in, thrusting the pot at him. Bloody hell, she was doing a horrible job at maintaining their cover.

“Alright, alright, geez! Whose house is this, anyway?!”

“Oh, sod off. We’ll be out of here soon anyway.”

There was a small clatter from the opposite corner of the small kitchen.

“Friends not going to stay the night?”

Nia and Pyra both froze and turned to Poppi, who looked utterly devastated. She held a stack of cups sadly, her little shoulders sagging. Even the flower she wore pinned to her cape looked wilted.

“Errr…. Uh…” Nia backpedaled, trying to think of something to say.

“It would be rude to impose on your hospitality,” Pyra explained gently.

“Friends not imposing! Poppi really happy to meet Pyra and Nia. Poppi not get to talk to other blade before either. Don’t want this to end so soon!” She gave them the biggest, most adorable puppy eyes she could.

Maybe it would be okay to stay. Just for a little while. They could make breakfast and play cards again, and talk about this that, and just be normal.

At least, until the Ardanians found them again.

“It’s… Really not a good idea.” Nia shook her head slowly.

Rex set down the pot.

“Now see here,” he began, “I’m not one to just leave people out in the cold. D’you two even have another place to stay?”

Nia and Pyra exchanged looks. “Er…”

“That’s what I thought. I’ll grab some blankets—”

“No, no, we really have to be going. Right now, actually. Big hurry.” Nia quickly said. She dusted off her hands, and caught Pyra’s eye—

“Actually,” Pyra replied, “Nia and I just need to have a quick chat. We’ll be back in a jiffy.”

Nia shot her a pleading look, to no avail. Pyra raised her eyebrows and nodded imperceptibly towards the door.

There was no one down in the understory this time of night, and the lone city-installed lamp was cracked and dark. So they would almost definitely be undisturbed, lit only by faint starlight.

Nia could see just fine, of course. A privilege of her borrowed Gormotti flesh. She sent a thank-you to whatever afterlife her sister might be in, even as she knew it was a farce. Of course, now wasn’t the time to be thinking about that sort of thing …

“Listen,” Pyra sighed, “having them along might not be such a bad idea.”

Nia just stood there, stunned.

“What,” she whispered. “ _ What. _ ”

“It doesn’t have to be forever. But he knew all those political rumors…”

“ _ I _ know about politics,” Nia said defensively.

“Erm…”

“Okay, listen, knowing all the… minutiae… Of everything isn’t that important when you’re just going to fight your way through it all—anyway, Rex is  _ fifteen! _ ”

“I’m afraid of something happening too, I admit, but…”

“What happens when he finds out we’re a terrorist and a blade that can do… Things?!”

Pyra blinked. “A terrorist?”

Freezing, Nia backpedaled swiftly, trying to figure out something to say. But her graceless mouth did what it usually did, in the end.

“Ah—er. Right. We never did get to talking about that, did we.”

They sort of stared at each other for a minute, awkwardly unable to get around that particular point.

“… Anyway,” Pyra bumbled, “this isn’t really about Rex, I have to admit.”

Trading one uncomfortable conversation for another. Classy.

Nia frowned. “I… Yeah. I’m concerned about what the military might do once they find Poppi.”

“The military? I’m more worried about the fact that she’s not around other blades. What would the military even do?”

“Well, she’s pretty much definitely unregistered, for one. Though I somehow doubt Indol would recognize her as a blade at all.”

“Unregistered?”

Nia pushed aside her usual  _ Really? They didn’t have that back in your day, either? _ reaction, and nodded.

“Blades have to be registered with the Praetorium under their driver’s name. The usual logic’s that it’s to keep people who shouldn’t from becoming drivers. Something like that.” She kept her face carefully straight.

“Ah.” Pyra frowned. “And you are… I mean, were you ever?”

“The person registered as my driver’s dead. I’ve honestly forgotten my number. It doesn’t matter anymore.” It was a bold-faced lie, but Nia wasn’t going to sit around and feel sorry for herself  _ now _ , of all times.

“I—I see.”

Nia sighed. “Look, the point is, Poppi is all kinds of legal gray areas, and Rex is clearly too thick to notice any of it. I get the sense Turuni is probably protecting them, though. All the more reason not to let them tag along.”

“But for Poppi to live her whole life trapped here… How much could an informant really protect them, anyway?” Pyra shuffled her feet uncomfortably.

“I wouldn’t say  _ trapped… _ ” Nia trailed off, suddenly thinking to herself about an opulent bedroom in an ornate house. About dinner parties and the clink of glassware.

About a young girl too frail to leave the walls.

She frowned strongly to herself. Pyra was looking at her curiously, something too close to understanding in her eyes to make Nia comfortable.

“Maybe I’ll think about it,” she mumbled.

Pyra smiled softly. “Thank you.”

They turned to reenter the house at the same time, perfectly in step—

There were two quiet  _ thwip _ s, and the deck suddenly rushed towards Nia so quickly she had no time to process it.

* * *

Poppi swung her legs as she watched Rex eat. Rex always ate very slowly and tried to be neat, but he wasn’t very good at it. She wondered if she would be better. Probably. He was holding the spoon all wrong, way off optimal balance configuration. Pyra knew how to do it right. She ate and cooked very neatly. Gracefully. She was always in balance, even when she was just walking around. It was very impressive. Nia kept changing her hand position around the whole time like she didn’t know what to do. That had been funny to watch. She kept swinging her legs.

“Driverpon,” she said, “it’s been long time since Nia and Pyra go outside?”

Rex blinked up at her, an onion stuck to his chin. His face went through a funny mix of emotions, from surprise to thoughtfulness to something her memory banks couldn’t identify. It was something like a weird blend of embarrassment and sadness and anger.

“We shouldn’t bother them,” he said tersely.  _ Terse _ , that was a word she liked. Towards the middle of the  _ T _ section of the dictionary Rex had gotten her,  _ see also: short, brusque, abrupt _ . Rex wasn’t usually any of those things. Something was wrong.

“Is Driverpon okay?”

“Rex fine.”

He was  _ sulking _ . Another nice word.

“Poppi going to check on them,” she announced. “Will be quiet. Minimal botheration.”

Rex blinked, sighed. “Well…”

A yelp and a  _ THUD! _ sounded from outside the door, making both of them jump in their seats. Then a lot of sounds of people shouting things like ‘ _ Restrain them quickly! Keep the nets secure! _ ’ that definitely weren’t good. Not good at all.

“Huh?”

Poppi performed a systems check and bolted for the door determinedly. She was pretty scared, but that would have to wait. All the same, she was very careful about opening it. It was no good to break something that had just been fixed.

There were a  _ lot _ of people in funny outfits outside. It took her a second to recognize the Ardanian crest on their big hats and realize what it meant. Two of them turned to her, and they just stood there for a second looking at each other.

Poppi had never punched someone before, but she had read about how to do it in books. It was really important to turn your arm in just the right way and not tense up until the last possible moment. She didn’t really have muscles in the same way most people did though, so she didn’t really know what “tensing” meant. Fortunately, the soldier fell back anyway, bowling over several of their comrades and letting her catch a glimpse of Pyra and Nia being dragged away in weird glowing nets.

That was when she started to run, and found out just how much damage half a ton of metal girl could do.

* * *

Malos not being back by morning wasn’t initially a concern. Even in his half-depowered state, he was impressively relaxed about everything he did, and had an uncanny knack for being able to wiggle his way out of any situation. He wasn’t much for carefully thought out plans—that was more Jin’s area—but he was still wily, strong, and disgustingly clever.

Until his pride and anger got in the way, of course.

So that left Jin pacing in front of Lora, gnawing on his fingernails just like she used to do all the time. Waiting for Malos to give the signal. Waiting, waiting. Way too much waiting when Nia and… the Aegis… were probably getting further away with every passing second.  _ If _ they weren’t sunk at the bottom of the cloud sea, though dead bodies would of course float to the surface—

He spun on his heel and strode in the opposite direction.

“Oh, Lora. Everything’s such a mess.”

He let his thoughts continue to swirl as he paced.

“I thought things would be as good as over once we had M—  _ her _ in our hands. Of course, I was a fool to think it would be that easy. You’d probably laugh and remind me of all the times we made a mess of everything.”

His expression softened, and he chuckled softly. “If only I could remember them better… I’m sorry. I’m getting too old for this, I think.”

A pause.

“You know, Malos remembers everything almost perfectly. Like it happened yesterday. He might be the only person in the world that really remembers us—that remembers any of it. Isn’t that strange?”

The forgetting had once scared Jin witless. Watching the faces and names of people fade from his memory as if they had never existed was hell. That sickly girl in Auresco they had helped—what did she look like? What was her name? Addam’s provisions specialist—who was he? Did they even go by ‘he’? Right, they had had those filching habits. Eating straight from the storehouse and handing out treats to hungry children. Something like that. That old lady in… ah, he preferred to forget that little village. But strangely, it of all things stuck in his mind. Wouldn’t go away. That crumbling cabin, long lost to the depths of the cloud sea, the screams of the titan echoing as it burned.

But it was the same as anything in this world. The good was lost, and the horrible allowed to propagate endlessly. Even his own mind was confined to this fact. He had long since accepted it.

“I’ll come back,” Malos had said. “Before you even know it. Wait for me.”

_ Before you even know it. _ Rising from the shadows with that same smirk on his face, just like he always did. Appearing suddenly, banishing light in his vicinity, bringing a strange dark warmth with him.

Something felt wrong, Jin decided. His instincts were pinging off of him in a strange way. There was an unsettling, crawling feeling in his chest that he didn’t like.

He turned on his heel and considered the com button. Considered how foolish it might be to go after Malos based on nothing but the nagging sensation that something was  _ wrong _ . But it continued to worm at him as the seconds stretched into minutes, niggled at his nervousness and poked at his concern.

He hit the switch, broadcasting his voice to the whole ship.

“Would you all come up to the bridge? There’s a problem.”

Frost slowly began to prickle around his feet.

* * *

Rolling her eyes, Patroka snorted.

“I’m  _ not _ going in there. That’s a death sentence for anyone that isn’t Malos, and you know it.”

Dromarch shuffled uncomfortably. Though he wouldn’t be so uncouth as to voice his thoughts in such a manner, Patroka was correct. Why Malos alone could pass through the place, he had no idea—in any case, he’d spent most of his life trying as hard as possible to stay away, and intended to keep it that way.

Jin was pacing back and forth, gnawing visibly on a thumbnail, only half-hearing Patroka’s protestations (at least, it seemed so to Dromarch). He left behind a trail of ice that everyone politely ignored.

“Upon such a stage, tragedy might be easily found,” Akhos pointed out, “but to leave a comrade in possible danger…”

“He’s been there so many damn times and never come out with a scratch! What the hell makes you think this time is different?”

“Forgive me for thinking you would be eager for a little revenge, Patroka. I thought you would see this as a chance to strike back.”

“Speak for yourself,” she spat. “ _ When _ I take revenge, it’ll be from very far away, with a  _ very _ large gun.”

“Hear, hear,” Mikhail cheered.

Dromarch cleared his throat, trying to contribute meaningfully. “Is there not a way to tell what has happened to Malos without entering the city proper?”

Akhos shook his head. “It’s much too large, with too many people, too many blades… any scan for an ether signature like his would be noticed immediately. And wouldn’t yield much of use, for that matter.”

“It has to be a small, stealthy group. Less trouble that way. One or two would suffice.” Jin stopped his pacing suddenly, peering over the group meaningfully.

Dromarch felt more than saw Mikhail freeze next to him. Peering out of the corner of his eye, he watched as a number of expressions passed over his comrade’s face—from anger to melancholy to something he couldn’t place.

“Jin,” Mikhail began, “If you’re really going to pull this on me—”

“I’ll go.”

Dromarch felt every eye in the room turn to him. He cleared his throat again, somewhat uncomfortably this time.

“I believe there is some… doubt you all hold over my loyalties. I imagine this would be a fine chance to prove them, no?” Why was he saying this? This was… Impulsive. Unlike himself. As much as he was careful to hold his logic firm, even now.

“That’s ridiculous!” Mikhail whipped around to face him. “Jin doesn’t care,  _ I _ don’t care—”

“I mean, I care,” Patroka snorted, “ _ I _ wouldn’t want you running off at the first sight of Nia, now that you know  _ all _ the stuff we’re about.” She inspected her fingernails. “You’re wrong about Jin, by the way. And I know Akhos agrees with me, too.”

Akhos pushed his glasses up his nose, carefully not meeting Dromarch’s eyes. “How cruel of you to put me on the spot, sister,” he intoned quietly.

Dromarch shifted, refraining from comment. He had suspected as much for a long time, after all.

“I’m tougher than you, Dromarch.” Mikhail put his hand on his hip, recovering quickly. “It’s a better idea for me to go anyway, with all the trouble I like to get up to.” He flashed a halfhearted smile.

“You’re needed to pilot the ship, are you not?” Dromarch kept his voice gentle. “I see that you have some compunctions with entering the—”

“It’s  _ really _ no problem,” Mikhail cut in, “Akhos can drive for me. The ship’s my baby, but you gotta know when to let go eventually…” He shifted a little, his eyes flicking to the floor.

“Then  _ both _ of you go, you idiots,” Patroka snarled, “Either way, I’m staying  _ out _ of this.” She turned tail and stomped off, doubtless to smash yet another training dummy to smithereens.

Akhos just shrugged, resigned. “I’ll ready the engine room.” With a salute, he was gone.

Mikhail stared at Dromarch, unfettered fear flashing through his eyes for a split second before he looked away. Dromarch was still trying to figure that out when Jin cleared his throat.

Both of them snapped to attention suddenly, and shivered. The temperature differential was beginning to make a freezing wind blow through the room, kicking up snowflakes as they formed and melted within a split second. Jin stood unbothered directly in the center of the small maelstrom.

“This can work,” he said softly. “Our abilities have a good balance… yes. It will do.”

Jin’s eyes seemed to stare right through them—it was downright frightening.

Dromarch liked Jin. He liked his sharp, analytical mind, and the care he clearly exhibited for his teammates. He liked his slow, methodical philosophies, clearly thought over carefully for all of the five hundred years he had lived. And the cooking was excellent as well. But this… this left cracks in that persona. This led to something underneath that Dromarch wasn’t sure he wanted to see.

“We move out at dusk. Prepare however you see fit.” It was gone as suddenly as it had come.

Dromarch was left wondering if he had imagined what he felt as Jin spun carefully on one heel and left, the tails of his coat billowing in the cold breeze that followed.

* * *

Nia opened her eyes slowly and groaned. Gradually, she became aware that her whole body was tingling oddly, as if it had fallen asleep—like a foot she had sat on for too long. And whatever she was lying on was cold. Cold and  _ hard _ .

A metal ceiling stared back at her. Metal walls. The lights were cold and bright, emitting a faint high-pitched whine that made her ears ache. At least there  _ were _ lights, come to think of it. How nice of her captors to think of providing it. They were so considerate.

She tried to sigh, but it came out more like a growl. That faint prickle against her core crystal meant that the room was reinforced with a… what had Mikhail called them? Ether suppression whatsits? Cages? Something like that. She remembered that feeling from the last time, how it left her unable to struggle her way out no matter how hard she yelled and shouted and slammed her half-formed weapon against the door. She remembered the sounds of laughter as they had thrown her into the cell, chattering about what they would have to drink that evening, as if she were a prize Ardun that had escaped its pen.

Because that was the situation, right? She’d let her guard down, and in that one small moment of carelessness, she and Pyra had been…dragged here like unruly livestock.  _ No need to kill them my arse, _ she thought bitterly. No doubt Mor Ardain had combed the town top to bottom as soon as those soldiers had been found. No  _ doubt _ . She cursed herself over and over for being  _ stupid _ , and  _ dumb _ , and  _ being a sentimental little arse that couldn’t do the necessary thing. _

It was already bringing back unpleasant memories. Memories of—

That same iron door, in front of her now. Short and squat, with heavy bolts and tie plates holding the hinges on. It was basically a single solid piece of steel with a peephole set directly in the center.

Who knew if someone was looking in on her now. Sneering at the  _ cannibal _ —

_ No, no, don’t think about that. I don’t want to think about that. _ But how could she not? Stuck on a Praetorium prison ship, just like then. At least, she  _ thought _ it was Praetorium. Her holding cell looked pretty much exactly the same—though how different could one be from another, honestly?

Dammit. Dammit dammit dammit dammit dammit.

She could sit up. But why? What was the point?

_ Sorry, Pyra. We screwed up. _

She sat up.

She saw Jin’s sword again, slicing through that door, shattering the supercooled metal as easily as glass. She had gone over that scene a hundred times in her head. Why had he chosen to save her, with what a huge fuckup she was?

_ My lady, _ Dromarch would say,  _ He sees your potential. _

_ Right, my potential to run out on the whole thing at the last second— _

_ You were only doing what you thought was right. _ He said that kind of thing a lot. Dromarch loved to go on about duty and morals all that. Were he here, he would talk about how getting captured wasn’t due to any moral failing on her part, and it was simply bad luck, and all that.  _ Sod off and let me brood! _ Is how she’d reply.

Then he’d quietly press up against her, his soft warm fur the only comfort in the cold steel room. And not say a word. Just twitch his tail now and again as he thought whatever Dromarch thoughts he had in his head.

She shoved her head in between her knees. Bloody hell, it was just so  _ quiet _ in here. Couldn’t they have given her someone to talk to? Something to  _ do _ so she wouldn’t go mad?

Hot rage immediately flooded through her. Why was she always being treated like this? Why couldn’t they just fucking understand that it hadn’t been just her choice to be this way? That it was the last chance her sister had had to… to… How could they scream and shout ‘cannibal’ when no blade would ever just do something like this out of nowhere? What was the point?

Well, she knew the point. She knew it like she knew the tendons in her hands and the blood in her veins—like the heart that had wrenched her chest as it grew, making her scream in pain over and over. It beat in a frenzy now, sending heat throttling through her body and through her veins, as if she was boiling alive. Her knuckles went white—with the force of her clenched fists, or with heat? Every breath was fire. Every thought buzzing with energy.

_ I hate them. _

_ I hate them, I hate them, I hate them… _

The ship rocked suddenly. A reverberation went through the metal floor and walls, like the deep gong of a bell.

It just added to her furor, really. What the hell had that been? What kind of fucked-up situation was she even in? Was this ship going to crash now, with her on it, barreling down into the cloud sea until it fell into Hell itself?

Another bang, more intense, the room pitching far enough to nearly bowl her over.

_ To hell with this. _

She stood. The ship rocked again, and she stumbled. The floor felt strangely cold under her feet. Why was that? Oh well, it wasn’t important.

In front of her eyes, the door shimmered, its once-solid lines wavering and fading in and out of reality. Silvery pools flickered in the edges of her vision, spreading over the matte metal. The cold, flickering lights were giving way to something warmer, more fundamental.

The door, yes. It was nothing now. From the instant she pressed her hand to it, she understood it perfectly, these little crystals of iron and carbon all bound up together—holding each other steady. Layered ingeniously in an alternating pattern of brittle and pliant alloys. Something was telling her this, whispering it into her subconscious. A stream of  _ something _ was flowing into her from somewhere and borrowing her eyes, her ears, and guiding her hand as she pressed it through the metal, watching it turn red then white as the light and energy flowed out of her and made it drip drip onto her clothes and off where it splashed onto the floor leaving little red spots to match the bigger ones that followed her footsteps

The ship rocked again.

As soon as she was through into the hallway, voices exploded around her. People shouting. The crackle of tinny speakers broadcasting barked orders she didn’t bother to decipher. Footsteps from another hallway. She didn’t pay attention—she was following the thing. Like a glowing thread, there and not there, that showed her where she needed to go.

Someone in flowing robes ran out, saw her, and screamed. She didn’t care.

Her stomach dropped out from under her—the ship falling briefly, losing power.

Not far to go. Flames licked from around the next corner; she was so close, now. Each step felt brittle, like sticking her foot into burning coals. Her shoes sank half a centimeter into the floor.

Pyra was there. Pyra was kneeling, a melted heap of metal behind her, breathing hard, panting with exertion. When she looked up, joy flashed over her face to quickly be smothered by fear. Her core crystal pulsed with a flare of light that should have dazzled Nia’s eyes, but didn’t. She saw perfectly clearly. She offered a hand to Pyra—

“Nia. You have to stop,” Pyra panted. Her crystal was glowing steadily now, slowly brighter and brighter.

Stop? What did that mean? She just wanted to leave. She hated this place. Pyra would come with her. They’d get out of here, and to the world tree. That was what they wanted. And at the tree, they would—

“Stop! STOP! YOU’LL BREAK THE SEAL!” Pyra grabbed her hand, yanking Nia downwards, and slammed her palm into Nia’s chest.

Nia’s core was so hot. It was so hot, and she hadn’t noticed… and not just hot, but  _ bright _ . Alive with energy that danced and sang over its facets. Pyra did…  _ something _ , and she felt that energy shift, moving in a different direction. Outward instead of inward.

A pulse of coolness. Steam, rising, draining energy as it flowed up and up and up…

She didn’t really understand what was happening—even Pyra looked confused. But she pushed  _ out _ , because it seemed like the right thing to do.

A flood flowed from her, across that link, soothing and calming where it touched. Condensation beaded over Pyra’s face. Nia felt a droplet slide from her brow down to her neck. It was… comfortable. Familiar.

Pyra lifted a hand to her face, her eyes full of wonder. She watched the vapor swirling through the air as if for the first time, as if she had never experienced the feeling of the water dancing over her skin. And maybe she hadn’t. Who knew if the world 500 years ago had had something as mundane as fog?

In that moment, Nia realized how little she knew about Pyra.

_ Maybe… maybe I want to know. _

The cloud that had condensed from their interaction obscured any detail other than their two bodies—but there were the sound of footsteps from down the hall. It broke the spell too easily, and Nia and Pyra snapped their heads towards the sound.

“Azurda’s outside,” Pyra murmured. “We only have to get through the ship.”

“Okay.”

They were off without a second thought, footsteps matching time as they raced toward freedom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sure you're wondering why the hell this took so long. Well, originally I was writing this to pass the time, because I had a really boring job that left me unsupervised for hours on end with literally nothing to do. Fortunately I've picked up a better one since then, but it's much busier! I basically just fit in bits of writing whenever I feel like it. 
> 
> On another note, I hope you're all safe, with the pandemic going around. Real life is crazier than (fan)fiction, as they say.

**Author's Note:**

> Before you ask "but where are Torna's blades?" I wholly admit that I can only shuffle so many characters at once and make them all meaningful, so in the interest of me being realistic about my writing ability they will sadly not be making an appearance. Sorry. I'm lazy, I know. This butts up terribly against my Perdido bias.


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